An Investigation into Jupiter’s 2019 Equatorial Zone Disturbance: Modifying the Crème Brûlée Model

Abstract:

In early 2019, Jupiter’s Equatorial Zone (EZ) experienced a disturbance that transformed its normally bright white color a darker reddish-brown hue. The cause of these and other dramatic changes of color and structure in Jupiter’s atmosphere remain an ongoing area of study, but recent work has pointed to the likelihood of such a darkening event resulting from or correlating with a clearing of the EZ’s clouds (Antuñano et al. 2018 Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 10987-10995) However, preliminary analyses of this particular episode in 2019 show a lack of this major cloud clearing at 5 microns (Orton et al. 2019. EPSC-DPS2019-109-1) as well as a high, thick haze over the EZ in the visible wavelength regime. In order to understand the cloud structure of the EZ during this disturbance and how it compares to both the quiescent EZ and past EZ disturbances, we analyze ground-based optical hyperspectral image cubes taken at the 3.5-m telescope at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, NM, simultaneously with the Juno spacecraft’s 19^th perijove pass of Jupiter in April 2019. We use the Non-Linear Optimal Estimator for Multivariate Spectral Analysis (NEMESIS) to conduct radiative transfer modeling and investigate the structure and color of the associated haze and the cloud below it. We produce a modified, hazier version of the Crème Brûlée cloud model to explain the cloud structure of the EZ during this disturbance and compare it to similar models of the EZ before the outbreak occurred. This work was supported by NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) NASA Fellowship Activity through training grant number 80NSSC18K1701.