Jupiter's UV Auroral Response to a Magnetospheric Compression Event

Abstract

The highly elliptical polar orbit of the Juno mission provides a unique opportunity to simultaneously measure the compression state of Jupiter's magnetosphere and the total power emitted by the planet's ultraviolet aurora, using a single spacecraft. This allows us to study how Jupiter's aurora respond to a compression event. In this paper, we present a case study of an extreme compression event that occurred on December 6–7 2022 when Juno was a distance of 70 R_J from Jupiter. This extreme compression was accompanied by a very large increase in the ultraviolet auroral emissions to 12 TW, a factor of six higher than the baseline level. This event coincided with the predicted arrival of a powerful interplanetary shock, which was expected to cause the largest increase in the solar wind dynamic pressure seen thus far during the Juno mission. The simultaneous occurrence of the interplanetary shock, the extreme compression and the bright ultraviolet aurora suggests that in this case, the auroral brightening was caused by the solar wind shock compressing the magnetosphere.