AAS 200th meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2002
Session 12. Planets and Comets
Display, Monday, June 3, 2002, 9:20am-6:30pm, SW Exhibit Hall

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[12.03] Jupiter Observations by Cassini CIRS: Atmospheric Dynamics, Temperatures and Composition

A. A. Simon-Miller, F. M. Flasar (NASA/GSFC), R. Achterberg (SSAI), B. Conrath, P. J. Gierasch (Cornell), V. Kunde, C. A. Nixon (U. Maryland), D. E. Jennings, P. Romani (NASA/GSFC), R. Carlson (SSAI), Cassini CIRS Team

In December 2000, Cassini passed 10 million km from Jupiter, allowing for simultaneous observations with the Galileo spacecraft. The Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) acquired global maps of Jupiter with a spatial resolution of 2.5 deg of latitude at the subspacecraft point at wavelengths from 600-1400 cm-1. This spectral range is inaccessible to Galileo, which also can not obtain global maps due to its downlink limitations.

With the CIRS data, temperatures corresponding to the 50-400 and .8-10 mbar regions were retrieved to find mean zonal winds, as well as detailed spatial structures. The mean zonal wind is complex and decays with altitude near the tropopause, but can continue to decay or build up again in the stratosphere. This implies a complex spatial distribution of momentum forcing. In addition to temperatures, hydrocarbon abundances were measured and some new trace species were found. The concentrations of acetylene and ethane also show latitudinal variation, with enhancements near the auroral hotspots. The CIRS data will be presented along with preliminary conclusions.


If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby/. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: Amy.Simon-Miller@gsfc.nasa.gov

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.