Mr. Dale Weigt

University of Southampton, UK

Remote X-ray telescopic observations of Jupiter in concert with Juno data

Abstract : Juno’s arrival at Jupiter back in 2016 has a provided a unique opportunity to study the jovian X-rays like never before.  Since their discovery by the Einstein Observatory 40 years ago, it is only now we can combine in situdata with remote X-ray campaigns such as Chandra and XMM-Newton. This allows us to frame the X-ray aurora in the context of the magnetospheric conditions observed by Juno. Chandra and XMM data provide both spatial and spectral X-ray analysis respectively of Jupiter. In this work, we focus on the timing and mapping capabilities of the Chandra X-ray telescope. We present both timing analysis and mapping results of one ~10-hour Chandra observation while Juno was near its apojove position. We find two quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) at the beginning and end of the observation window with periods of ~37 mins and ~26 mins respectively. The X-ray heat maps show that morphology of the hot spot was extended during these intervals. The magnetospheric origins of the QPOs were found to lie on possible open and closed field lines near the magnetosheath at noon-dusk. We also present some future avenues which can be explored from this dataset to continue to further our understanding about the mysterious X-ray aurora.