Department Logo for Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences

Thermal Infrared Exploration of Outer-Planet Atmospheres


April 30, 2015, noon - 12:50 p.m.
Geology 4677

Presented By:
Glenn S. Orton
JPL

See Event on Google. Subscribe to Calendar

Similar to Earth-observing weather satellites, mid-infrared observations of the outer planets are sensitive to the distribution of temperatures, minor and trace gaseous constituents and the distribution of clouds and aerosols. Key sets of observations can be used with both spectroscopy and imaging of thermal emission to derive these properties. Recent observations with sensitive instrumentation on the Spitzer and Herschel infrared telescopes are providing access to new spectral regions. Sensitive ground-based spatially resolved observations, such as those from the Infrared Telescope Facility, the Very Large Telescope, the Gemini Telescopes, and the Subaru Telescope are extending observations by the Voyager IRIS experiment from several decades ago both to determine variability in time and to uncover additional information in fainter spectral regions that were not within the grasp of Voyager. Recent examples include the discovery of non-seasonal as well as seasonal dependence of temperatures in Saturn and Jupiter that indicate the presence of waves with properties that are similar to those in the Earth's atmosphere. We plan to focus ground-based observations in a campaign to supplement observations from the Juno mission that is scheduled to orbit Jupiter in the 2016-2018 time frame.