Studies of Io's atmosphere and plasma torus
Jupiter's hot and cold plasma tori and the atmosphere of Io, a jovian moon located in a nearly circular orbit at a distance of 5.9 jovian radii from the center of Jupiter are examined. For the hot torus the ion partitioning and energy balance are modeled by assuming that there are independent sources of neutral sulfur and oxygen atoms, that the thermal electrons have a density of 2000/cu cm and a temperature of 5 eV. In the model of energy and mass balance of the cold torus its primary source of plasma is considered a radial diffusion inward from the hot torus. The time scale for this process is assumed to be identical to that required for energetic electrons to supply the energy necessary to power the synchrotron radiation. Charge exchange between thermal ions and an extended neutral cloud of sulfur and oxygen produces fresh ions which are accelerated to corotation by the magnetic field of Jupiter. These fresh accelerated ions are the source of energy which powers the cold torus emissions. The main ion loss mechanism is a two-step process whereby charge exchange between ions and neutral molecules transforms ions into fast neutrals. Since it is generally agreed that the source of neutrals to the hot and cold tori is the atmosphere of Io, then in order to better understand torus processes the behavior of Io's atmosphere needs to be understood. Numerical gasdynamic SO2 models of sublimation and volcanic atmospheres of Io are developed by means of computer simulations. Using a fine computational grid and the computational capabilities of the Cray supercomputers, the relevant atmospheric properties such as pressure, density, temperature, and velocity are found. Day side and night side atmospheres were investigated. It was found that volcanoes form an extended atmosphere on Io. A sublimation H2S atmosphere was also investigated.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Los Angeles, CA (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 7059223
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Ph.D. Thesis
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
JUPITER PLANET
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES
PLASMA
CHARGE EXCHANGE
ENERGY BUDGETS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MASS DISTRIBUTION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
OXYGEN IONS
THEORETICAL DATA
VOLCANOES
ATMOSPHERES
CHARGED PARTICLES
DATA
DISTRIBUTION
INFORMATION
IONS
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANETS
SIMULATION
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
640107* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Planetary Phenomena