Composition and structure of fresh ammonia clouds on Jupiter based on quantitative analysis of Galileo/NIMS and New Horizons/LEISA spectra

Autor: L.A. Sromovsky, Patrick M. Fry
Rok vydání: 2018
Předmět:
Zdroj: Icarus. 307:347-370
ISSN: 0019-1035
DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2017.10.037
Popis: Ammonia gas has long been assumed to be the main source of condensables for the upper cloud layer on Jupiter, but distinctive spectral features associated with ammonia have been seen only rarely. Since both ammonia and NH 4 SH absorb in the 3 µm region, and widespread absorption in the 3 µm region was present (Sromovsky and Fry, 2010), identification of the 2 µm absorption feature of NH 3 provided an opportunity to clearly establish its presence in Jovian clouds. Baines et al. (2002) succeeded in finding in Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) observations one feature that had both 2 µm and 3 µm absorption, and many which were known to have absorption at 2.73 µm. They named these Spectrally Identifiable Ammonia Clouds (SIACs). They also argued that these were fresh ammonia clouds that would eventually succumb to some process that would obscure their absorption features. Detection of many more of the 2 µm features was later achieved by New Horizon’s Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument, which provided both the spatial and spectral resolution needed to identify these features. Here we report on the first quantitative modeling that uses NIMS spectra over a broad (1–5.2 µm) spectral range and LEISA spectra over a much narrower (1.25–2.5 µm) spectral range to constrain the cloud structure and composition of these rare cloud features and compare them to background clouds. We find that the absorption signature at 2 µm, which is well characterized in LEISA spectra, is relatively subtle and easily matched by model clouds containing spherical particles of ammonia ice with radii of 2–4 µm. The NIMS spectra, which cover both reflected sunlight as well as thermal emission regions are more difficult to model with cloud materials plausibly present in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The best signal/noise spectra obtained from NIMS provide a relatively sparse sampling of the spectrum, which does not establish the detailed shape of the 3 µm absorption region. NIMS SIAC spectra with much denser spectral sampling are limited by much higher noise levels that degrade the features that are key to identifying cloud composition. The structure which best matches the wide range NIMS SIAC spectra contains two overlapping NH 3 clouds with a bi-modal size distribution over an optically thick NH 4 SH cloud. The bi-modal distribution may be a result of modeling non-spherical, possibly fractal aggregate, particles with spheres.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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