Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Ionospheric Pedersen and Hall conductances play significant roles in electromagnetic coupling between the planetary ionosphere and magnetosphere. Several observations and models have suggested the existence of meteoric ions with interplanetary origins in the lower part of Jupiter’s ionosphere; however, no models have considered the contributions of meteoric ions to ionospheric conductance.
Nakamura et al. [2022] evaluate the contribution of meteoric ions to ionospheric conductance by developing an ionospheric model combining a meteoroid ablation model and a photochemical model. This study brings innovative results demonstrating that meteoritic ions are dominant in the conducting layer at Jupiter. This is important for Jovian magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. The authors evaluate that Pedersen and Hall conductances are enhanced by factors of 3 and 10, respectively, in the middle- and low-latitude auroral regions when meteoric ions are included.
The contribution of meteoric ions to the ionospheric conductance is expected to be important only on Jupiter in our solar system because of Jupiter’s intense magnetic and gravitational fields.
Citation: Nakamura, Y., Terada, K., Tao, C., Terada, N., Kasaba, Y., Leblanc, F., et al. (2022). Effect of meteoric ions on ionospheric conductance at Jupiter. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, 127, e2022JA030312. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JA030312
—Viviane Pierrard, Editor, Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics