Spectro-imaging observations of Jupiter's 2 μm auroral emission. II: Thermospheric winds

Infrared observations obtained in 1999-2000 with the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS/BEAR) instrument at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) are used to infer the jovian wind velocity in the north pole auroral region. The measured Doppler shifts of the H-2 and H-3(+) lines near 2.1 mu m are used to derive the ion and neutral wind velocities in Jupiter's high latitude thermosphere. We find that the H-3(+) hot spot region reported by Raynaud et al. (Raynaud, E., Lellouch, E., Maillard, J.-P., Gladstone, G.R., Waite Jr., J.H., Bezard, B., Drossart, P., Fouchet, T. [2004]. Icarus 171, 133-152) is characterized by a H-3(+) flow with a velocity reaching 3.1 +/- 0.4 km/s, while only an upper limit for the average H-2 wind velocity of 1.0 km/s is derived. The uncertainties derived for the absolute velocities are primarily due to instrumental effects and don't affect the relative velocity between H-3(+) and H-2, for which a lower limit is found to be 1.7 km/s. The lower velocity inferred from the H-2 emission in regards to H-3(+) emission may result from differences in altitudes sounded by these lines. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.