ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) will provide a detailed investigation of the Jovian system in the 2030s, combining a suite of state-of-the-art instruments with an orbital tour tailored to maximise observing opportunities. We review the Jupiter science enabled by the JUICE mission, building on the legacy of discoveries from the Galileo, Cassini, and Juno missions, alongside ground- and space-based observatories. We focus on remote sensing of the climate, meteorology, and chemistry of the atmosphere and auroras from the cloud-forming weather layer, through the upper troposphere, into the stratosphere and ionosphere.
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December 2022
We present a statistical study of Jupiter's disk X-ray emissions using 19 years of Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO) observations. Previous work has suggested that these emissions are consistent with solar X-rays elastically scattered from Jupiter's upper atmosphere. We showcase a new pulse invariant (PI) filtering method that minimizes instrumental effects which may produce unphysical trends in photon counts across the nearly two-decade span of the observations.
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October 2022
The dynamics of the Jovian magnetosphere is controlled by the interplay of the planet's fast rotation, its solar-wind interaction and its main plasma source at the Io torus, mediated by coupling processes involving its magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere. At the ionospheric level, these processes can be characterized by a set of parameters including conductances, field-aligned currents, horizontal currents, electric fields, transport of charged particles along field lines including the fluxes of electrons precipitating into the upper atmosphere which trigger auroral emissions, and the particle and Joule heating power dissipation rates into the upper atmosphere. Determination of these key parameters makes it possible to estimate the net transfer of momentum and energy between Jovian upper atmosphere and equatorial magnetosphere.
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August 2022
The Juno spacecraft's polar orbits have enabled direct sampling of Jupiter's low-altitude auroral field lines. While various data sets have identified unique features over Jupiter's main aurora, they are yet to be analyzed altogether to determine how they can be reconciled and fit into the bigger picture of Jupiter's auroral generation mechanisms. Jupiter's main aurora has been classified into distinct "zones", based on repeatable signatures found in energetic electron and proton spectra.
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