论文标题
试图检测IO SO2和NACL气氛的瞬时变化
An attempt to detect transient changes in Io's SO2 and NaCl atmosphere
论文作者
论文摘要
IO的大气主要是SO2,由火山量超出和升华的组合所维持。大气的损失是木星大磁层的主要质量来源。先前的研究归因于IO环境中的各种瞬时现象和木星的磁层归因于据称是由火山活动变化触发的大气质量损失的突然变化。由于火山羽流中的气体无法直接逸出,因此这种因果关系将需要瞬时火山诱导的大气丰度变化,到目前为止从未观察到。在这里,我们报告了用IRAM NOEMA干涉仪获得的大气SO2和NaCl的四个观察结果。将这些观察结果与火山热点以及IO的中性和等离子体环境的测量进行了比较。我们在IO大气中发现了稳定的NaCl色谱柱密度。与3月至2017年4月相比,2016年12月得出的SO2色谱柱密度约为30%。从2016年12月到2017年3月,SO2的增加可能与2017年春季在几个地点观察到的火山活动增加有关,但是火山痕量气体NACL的稳定性和导致NACL/SO2比率的稳定性不支持这种解释。在硫离子圆环和Na中性云中观察到的斑点表明,在增加SO2丰度的时期,质量负荷会减少。较小的Na亮度和稳定的大气NaCl进一步争议较早提示钠云和Loki Patara的热点活动正相关,这在此期间大大增加了。 IO总体的环境似乎处于静止状态,阻止了进一步的结论。只有木星的Aurora形态进行了几次短期变化,这显然与IO的静态环境或相对稳定的气氛无关。
Io's atmosphere is predominately SO2 sustained by a combination of volcanic outgassing and sublimation. The loss from the atmosphere is the main mass source for Jupiter's large magnetosphere. Previous studies attributed various transient phenomena in Io's environment and Jupiter's magnetosphere to a sudden change in the mass loss from the atmosphere supposedly triggered by a change in volcanic activity. Since the gas in volcanic plumes does not escape directly, such causal correlation would require a transient volcano-induced change in atmospheric abundance, which has never been observed so far. Here we report four observations of atmospheric SO2 and NaCl obtained with the IRAM NOEMA interferometer. These observations are compared to measurements of volcanic hot spots and Io's neutral and plasma environment. We find a stable NaCl column density in Io's atmosphere. The SO2 column density derived for December 2016 is about 30% lower compared to the period of March to April 2017. This increase in SO2 from December 2016 to March 2017 might be related to increasing volcanic activity observed at several sites in spring 2017, but the stability of the volcanic trace gas NaCl and resulting decrease in NaCl/SO2 ratio do not support this interpretation. Observed dimmings in both the sulfur ion torus and Na neutral cloud suggest rather a decrease in mass loading in the period of increasing SO2 abundance. The dimming Na brightness and stable atmospheric NaCl furthermore dispute an earlier suggested positive correlation of the sodium cloud and the hot spot activity at Loki Patara, which considerably increased in this period. The environment of Io overall appears to be in a quiescent state, preventing further conclusions. Only Jupiter's aurora morphology underwent several short-term changes, which are apparently unrelated to Io's quiescent environment or the relatively stable atmosphere.