Recent Science Results

Julie Rathbun (of the Planetary Science Instutute) and I have a grant from the NASA PDART program, running from 2016-2019, to calibrate and place in the NASA Planetary Data System archives the IoCam1 Jupiter and mutual event occultations described here as well as similar observations obtained by Julie and John Spencer. Recent improvements in the ephemeris (orbital predictions) for the Galilean satellites, makes it possible to reanalyze this data set to obtain more precise identification of volcanic hotspots and their locations, and more details of the emission within the Loki hotspot.

A summary of techniques used on Io

IoCam1 Observations

IoCam1 has been used at the WIRO 2.3-m telescope outside Laramie and at the Perkins 1.8-m telescope at Lowell Observatory for monitoring volcanic hot spot activity on Io, for obtaining Jupiter images, and for general infrared photometry.  It has also been used for studying the atmosphere of Titan and Jupiter by means of stellar occultatoins.

The 1998 Brightening of Io

1999 Monitoring of Io

Jupiter

Longer Wavelength Observations of Io

Being an InSb camera, IoCam1 can only be used at wavelengths shortward of 5.5 microns.   At these wavelengths it measures the "current" volcanic activity on Io.   However most of the energy from the hot spots is emitted by older and cooler lava flows whose peak emission comes at longer wavelengths.  In order to measure the total energy of the hot spots we have begun to apply the Jupiter occultation technique (described in the above IoCam1  Io section) to these longer wavelengths.  Our initial tests were done at WIRO using Denver University's "TNTCAM" camera, and recent results have been obtained using JPL's MIRLIN camera at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility.

IRTF-MIRLIN Results


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Last revised: March 6, 2018.