Juno Jupiter Mystery (Update2)

The Current State of JUNO

The lead scientist, Dr. Scott Bolton, admits essentially that Jupiter is not a gas giant, stating ” We’re seeing a lot of our ideas were incorrect and maybe naive.” (1) Scientists are puzzled to see that the familiar striped cloud layers ‘may be’ only skin deep. These zones and belts either don’t exist or the Juno microwave instrument just isn’t sensitive to it. (2) The gravity experiment is not seeing a concentrated core at the center of the planet or a pure hydrogen interior, the two competing hypotheses, Dr. Bolton stated “and what we found was that neither are true.” Instead, the data suggests a ‘fuzzy’ core, with unexplained ‘anomalous masses’. (3) The enormously powerful ultraoviolet auroral ovals are imagined to be due to energetic particles descending around the poles, but what the Juno JEDI energetic particle detector has detected to date are streams of electrons coming upward from the polar regions. Dr. John Connerney states ” Its a 180-degree turnabout from the way we were thinking about these emissions.”

The Cassini mission, in orbit since 2004, finally ended last week. Optimistically, Dr. Bolton mused that “Eventually we will compare …” the data from the two missions and “We will really be able to advance our understanding of how these giant planets work.” This is doubtful, since in the entire 13 years orbiting, Cassini was not even able to determine the rotation rate of Saturn.

Cyclic Catastrophism

Fig.1 In the JEDI 90 TOFxE spectrum for ions on day 240, 2016, the abscissa shows the energy deposition in the SSD array in digital number and keV. The ordinate shows the time of flight measured for each ion in digital number and nanosecond. Clear tracks are observed for protons, helium, oxygen, sulfur, and an unexpected heavy ion track labeled Mg/Na.

One of the main objectives of the Juno mission was to determine the origin of the strong UV emission from the auroral ovals. This is thought to be due to the incidence of a powerful flux of heavy ions, although the source of such ions has not been determined. The JEDI instrument is considered the best means of identifying these ions. However, as mentioned in previous posts, Juno’s orbit passes too high above the poles of Jupiter to detect the unique ³He⁺⁺ ions produced by the fusion reaction on the Methane Gas Hydrate (MGH) surface of Jupiter. This reaction, p + d -> ³He⁺⁺ + γ , produces 10³⁰ of these unusual ions per second. They have energies of 4.98 MeV and because they are so light, have velocities ~ 17,800 km/s. Compared to the expected ions, such as H+ (protons), He+, O+, S+, which have a wide range of energies, these ³He⁺⁺ions are produced by the same fusion reaction and as a result all have the same high energy. The JEDI specialists have found a mysterious particle with a high energy distribution centered beyond the high energy limit of the ion detector at the right of Figure 1, labelled Mg/Na. Based on the reported time-of-flight (TOF), this particle appears to be between oxygen and sulfur, possibly Mg or Na or a combination of the two. Cyclic Catastrophism suggests that the instrument fails to measure their correct Time Of Flight (TOF) through the instrument because the particles are doubly charged. The ones counted were from the tail of the energy distribution slowed by collisions in space or the thick shielding of the solid-state detector (SSD), described as “0.25 cm of a Tungsten-Copper mixture with density of order >15 g/cm3”. (See: The Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) Investigation for the Juno Mission by Mauk et al., Space Science Reviews)

In Cyclic Catastrophism, the complete range of elemental abundances known on Earth are present within Jupiter, since separate large impacts on Jupiter produced each of the terrestrial planets, Venus only 6,000 years BP, so the presence of these elements is to be expected. The comments in the paper are based on the old ‘gas giant’ hypothesis, in which the entire planet is thought to comprise hydrogen and helium.

Comments by the authors of the cited paper:

Juno/JEDI observations of 0.01 to >10 MeV energetic ions in the Jovian auroral regions: Anticipating a source for polar X-ray emission
Authors
D. K. Haggerty, B. H. Mauk, C. P. Paranicas, G. Clark, P. Kollmann, A. M. Rymer,
S. J. Bolton, J. E. P. Connerney, S. M. Levin

“We can think of only two possible sources for this huge abundance of what is normally a minor ion at Jupiter: (a) an iogenic source not observed in previous missions to Jupiter and (b) a meteoric source as has been observed at other planets but not previously at Jupiter. Iogenic material is ubiquitous in the inner magnetosphere, and the spectrum has been documented by previous missions. We do not see a reason that an iogenic source would create such a unique energy distribution; rather, we would expect that an iogenic source would create an energy distribution similar to sulfur. The energy distribution of the Mg/Na and the intensity at which it is observed during perijove one is unlike anything in the reported literature.”

“Given the unique energy distribution and large abundance of the observed material, the apparent transitory nature of the source, and the initial results of the histogram analysis, we speculate that this is an observation of magnesium ions due to meteoric ablation, and we acknowledge that neither the source nor the composition has been conclusively demonstrated at this early stage of analysis.”

Further Discussion

The cited paper also includes:

“There are two additional aspects of this observation that make it unique. (a) Its energy distribution is very different from that of O or S, as it has a lower limit in our observations of about 0.5 MeV. (b) These additional ions were not observed during the following Juno perijoves where instruments were operating (11 December 2016, 2 February 2017, and 27 March 2017, these data are not shown here). In other words, these heavy ions appear to be a transient feature.”

Fig. 2. Vortex of helium ions exiting the great Red Spot, striking the circulating plasma cloud, Currently called the inner radiation belt,

Because the mysterious counts only become noticeable when all the data on PJ1 are summed, and not on any subsequent passes, the authors suggest that this was a transient event, such as the impact of a foreign body. This author suggests that it is because the ion paths are highly localized (Figure 2.), an image from my Jupiter paper, which shows the hypothetical paths of the ³He⁺⁺ions producing the inner radiation belt and auroral ovals, only specific Juno orbits, like PJ7 which passed over the Great Red Spot, would have a chance of detecting the ions because, as illustrated by the highly localized auroral ovals these ions maintain extremely low and circular trajectories while Juno passes above the poles as high as 35,000 km. At the same time, because the ions are produced at enormous rate 10³⁰ /s, they are also being lost to space or the atmosphere at the same rate. But most are being lost at their original velocities, 17,800 km/s, and even if encountered by JEDI, cannot be measured, since the apparent upper level of energy shown in Fig.1 is limited by the ability to measure time-of-flight (TOF). The data suggest a tiny fraction of ³He⁺⁺ions are being slowed by collisions, enabling the detection of the tail of the distribution by the highest level of the JEDI ion detector.

Consensus science has no idea that ~ 10³⁶ particles circling Jupiter, currently termed ‘the inner radiation belt’ are generating its powerful magnetic field and constant, perfectly shaped, auroral ovals. To date, the JEDI team have foregone attempts at identifying the ³He⁺⁺helium ions by turning off the JEDI instrument between +/- 10 minutes of the inner radiation belt.