P31B-2058
Connecting Io's volcanic activity to the Io plasma torus: comparison of Galileo/NIMS volcanic and ground-based torus observations

Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Fabiola Pinho Magalhaes1, Rosaly M C Lopes2, Julie A Rathbun3, Walter D Gonzalez4, Jeffrey P Morgenthaler5, Ezequiel Echer4 and Mariza Pereira de Souza Echer6, (1)JPL/NASA/Caltech, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (3)Planetary Science Institute Tucson, Tucson, AZ, United States, (4)INPE National Institute for Space Research, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, (5)Planetary Science Institute Fort Kent, Fort Kent, ME, United States, (6)INPE National Institute for Space Research, Geophysics, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil
Abstract:
Io, the innermost of the Jupiter's four Galilean moons, is a remarkable object in the Solar System, due to its intense and energetic volcanic activity. The volcanic sulfur and oxygen in Io's tenuous atmosphere escapes forming an extended neutral cloud around Io and Jupiter. Subsequently, by ionization and pickup ions, a ring of charged particles encircling Jupiter is created, forming the Io plasma torus. Considering this scenario, it is reasonable to expect that the Io plasma torus should be affected by changes in Io's volcanism.

Interactions between Io and the Jovian environment is unique and yet not very well understood. Here we present two sets of observations. One from the Galileo Near-Infrared Imaging Spectrograph (NIMS) instrument, which obtained spectral image cubes between 0.7 and 5.2 microns. The other dataset is from ground-based observations of the [SII] 6731 Å emission lines from the Io plasma torus, obtained at McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, at Kitt Peak. Our dataset from the [SII] 6731 Å emission lines cover more years than the one from the NIMS data. The years presented in this work for a comparative study are from 1998 through 2001.

Using the NIMS instrument we were able to identify which volcanoes were active and measure their level of activity. From the [SII] 6731 Å emission lines we were able to trace the densest part of the torus and also the brightness of both ansa. By comparing the results from the Galileo instrument and the ground-based observations, we are exploring how the Io plasma torus responds to large eruptions from Io. We aim with this study to help improve our understanding of this complex coupled system, Jupiter-Io.

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