An observation of Jupiter's tidal response is anticipated for the on-going Juno spacecraft mission. We combine self-consistent, numerical models of Jupiter's equilibrium tidal response with observed Doppler shifts from the Juno gravity science experiment to test the sensitivity of the spacecraft to tides raised by the Galilean satellites and the Sun. The concentric Maclaurin spheroid (CMS) method finds the equilibrium shape and gravity field of a rotating, liquid planet with the tide raised by a satellite, expanded in Love numbers ($k_{nm}$). We present improvements to CMS theory that eliminate an unphysical center of mass offset and study in detail the convergence behavior of the CMS approach. We demonstrate that the dependence of $k_{nm}$ with orbital distance is important when considering the combined tidal response for Jupiter. Conversely, the details of the interior structure have a negligible influence on $k_{nm}$, for models that match the zonal harmonics $J_2$, $J_4$ and $J_6$, already measured to high precision by Juno. As the mission continues, improved coverage of Jupiter's gravity field at different phases of Io's orbit is expected to yield an observed value for the degree-2 Love number ($k_{22}$) and potentially select higher--degree $k_{nm}$. We present a test of the sensitivity of the Juno Doppler signal to the calculated $k_{nm}$, which suggests the detectability of $k_{33}$, $k_{42}$ and $k_{31}$, in addition to $k_{22}$. A mismatch of a robust Juno observation with the remarkably small range in calculated Io equilibrium $k_{22}=0.58976\pm0.0001$, would indicate a heretofore uncharacterized dynamic contribution to the tides.
The JUNO mission to Jupiter is planned to measure the water abundance in Jupiter's atmosphere below the cloud layer. This measurement is important because it can be used to reveal valuable information on Jupiter's origin and its composition. In this paper we discuss the importance of this measurement, the challenges in its interpretation, and address how it can be connected to interior and formation models of Jupiter.
The Juno mission has revolutionized and challenged our understanding of Jupiter. As Juno transitioned to its extended mission, we review the major findings of Jupiter's internal structure relevant to understanding Jupiter's formation and evolution. Results from Juno's investigation of Jupiter's interior structure imply that the planet has compositional gradients and is accordingly non-adiabatic, with a complex internal structure. These new results imply that current models of Jupiter's formation and evolution require a revision. In this paper, we discuss potential formation and evolution paths…
Jupiter's internal flow structure is still not fully known, but can be now better constrained due to Juno's high-precision measurements. The recently published gravity and magnetic field measurements have led to new information regarding the planet and its internal flows, and future magnetic measurements will allow taking another step in resolving this puzzle. In this study, we propose a new method to better constrain Jupiter's internal flow field using the Juno gravity measurements combined with the expected measurements of magnetic secular variation. Based on a combination of hydrodynamical …
Seismology represents a unique method to probe the interiors of giant planets. Recently, Saturn's f-modes have been indirectly observed in its rings, and there is strong evidence for the detection of Jupiter global modes by means of ground-based, spatially-resolved, velocimetry measurements. We propose to exploit Juno's extremely accurate radio science data by looking at the gravity perturbations that Jupiter's acoustic modes would produce. We evaluate the perturbation to Jupiter's gravitational field using the oscillation spectrum of a polytrope with index 1 and the corresponding radial eigen…
The moment of inertia of a giant planet reveals important information about the planet's internal density structure and this information is not identical to that contained in the gravitational moments. The forthcoming Juno mission to Jupiter might determine Jupiter's normalized moment of inertia NMoI=C/MR^2 by measuring Jupiter's pole precession and the Lense-Thirring acceleration of the spacecraft (C is the axial moment of inertia, and M and R are Jupiter's mass and mean radius, respectively). We investigate the possible range of NMoI values for Jupiter based on its measured gravitational fie…
The UVS instrument on the Juno mission recorded transient bright emission from a point source in Jupiter's atmosphere. The spectrum shows that the emission is consistent with a 9600-K blackbody located 225 km above the 1-bar level and the duration of the emission was between 17 ms and 150 s. These characteristics are consistent with a bolide in Jupiter's atmosphere. Based on the energy emitted, we estimate that the impactor had a mass of 250-5000 kg, which corresponds to a diameter of 1-4 m. By considering all observations made with Juno UVS over the first 27 perijoves of the mission, we estim…
Deciphering the flow below the cloud-level of Jupiter remains a critical milestone in understanding Jupiter's internal structure and dynamics. The expected high-precision Juno measurements of both the gravity field and the magnetic field might help to reach this goal. Here we propose a method that combines both fields to constrain the depth dependent flow field inside Jupiter. This method is based on a mean-field electrodynamic balance that relates the flow field to the anomalous magnetic field, and geostrophic balance that relates the flow field to the anomalous gravity field. We find that th…
In 2016, the NASA Juno spacecraft will initiate its one-year mission around Jupiter and become the first probe to explore the polar regions of Jupiter. The HST UV instruments (STIS and ACS) can greatly contribute to the success of the Juno mission by providing key complementary views of Jupiter's UV aurora from Earth orbit. Juno carries an ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) and an infrared spectral mapper (JIRAM) that will obtain high-resolution spectral images providing the auroral counterpart to Juno's in situ particles and fields measurements with the plasma JADE and JEDI particle detectors. Th…
The Juno orbiter continues to collect data on Jupiter's gravity field with unprecedented precision since 2016, recently reporting a non-hydrostatic component in the tidal response of the planet. At the mid-mission perijove 17, Juno registered a Love number $k_2=0.565\pm0.006$ that is $-4\pm1\%$ ($1σ$) from the theoretical hydrostatic $k_2^{(hs)}=0.590$. Here we assess whether the aforementioned departure of tides from hydrostatic equilibrium represents the neglected gravitational contribution of dynamical tides. We employ perturbation theory and simple tidal models to calculate a fractional dy…
Observations of Jupiter's gravity field by Juno have revealed surprisingly small values for the high order gravitational moments, considering the abundances of heavy elements measured by Galileo 20 years ago. The derivation of recent equations of state for hydrogen and helium, much denser in the Mbar region, worsen the conflict between these two observations. In order to circumvent this puzzle, current Jupiter model studies either ignore the constraint from Galileo or invoke an ad hoc modification of the equations of state. In this paper, we derive Jupiter models which satisfy both Juno and Ga…
The high-precision Juno gravitational measurements allow us to infer the structure of Jupiter's deep atmospheric zonal flow. Since this inference is nonunique, it is important to explore the space of possible solutions. In this paper, we consider a model in which Jupiter's deep atmospheric zonal flow is barotropic, or invariant along the direction of the rotation axis, until it is truncated at depth by some dynamical process (e.g., Reynolds stress, Lorentz or viscous force). We calculate the density perturbation produced by the $z$-invariant part of the flow using the thermal wind equation and…
The Juno spacecraft has measured Jupiter's low-order, even gravitational moments, $J_2$--$J_8$, to an unprecedented precision, providing important constraints on the density profile and core mass of the planet. Here we report on a selection of interior models based on ab initio computer simulations of hydrogen-helium mixtures. We demonstrate that a dilute core, expanded to a significant fraction of the planet's radius, is helpful in reconciling the calculated $J_n$ with Juno's observations. Although model predictions are strongly affected by the chosen equation of state, the prediction of an e…
The UVS instrument on the Juno mission records far-ultraviolet reflected sunlight from Jupiter. These spectra are sensitive to the abundances of chemical species in the upper atmosphere and to the distribution of the stratospheric haze layer. We combine observations from the first 30 perijoves of the mission in order to study the meridional distribution of acetylene (C$_2$H$_2$) in Jupiter's stratosphere. We find that the abundance of C$_2$H$_2$ decreases towards the poles by a factor of 2-4, in agreement with previous analyses of mid-infrared spectra. This result is expected from insolation r…
Disequilibrium species have been used previously to probe the deep water abundances and the eddy diffusion coefficient for giant planets. In this paper, we present a diffusion-kinetics code that predicts the abundances of disequilibrium species in the tropospheres of Jupiter and Saturn with updated thermodynamic and kinetic data. The dependence on the deep water abundance and the eddy diffusion coefficient is investigated. We quantified the disagreements in CO kinetics that comes from using different reaction networks and identified C$_2$H$_6$ as a useful tracer for the eddy diffusion coeffici…
A few years ago, Hubbard (2012, 2013) presented an elegant, non-perturbative method, called concentric MacLaurin spheroid (CMS), to calculate with very high accuracy the gravitational moments of a rotating fluid body following a barotropic pressure-density relationship. Having such an accurate method is of great importance for taking full advantage of the Juno mission, and its extremely precise determination of Jupiter gravitational moments, to better constrain the internal structure of the planet. Recently, several authors have applied this method to the Juno mission with 512 spheroids linear…
The Juno mission has provided measurements of Jupiter s gravity field with an outstanding level of accuracy, leading to better constraints on the interior of the planet. Improving our knowledge of the internal structure of Jupiter is key to understanding its formation and evolution but is also important in the framework of exoplanet exploration. In this study, we investigated the differences between the state-of-the-art equations of state and their impact on the properties of interior models. Accounting for uncertainty on the hydrogen and helium equation of state, we assessed the span of the i…
The identity of the coloring agent(s) in Jupiter's atmosphere and the exact structure of Jupiter's uppermost cloud deck are yet to be conclusively understood. The Crème Brûlée model of Jupiter's tropospheric clouds, originally proposed by Baines et al. (2014) and expanded upon by Sromovsky et al. (2017) and Baines et al. (2019), presumes that the chromophore measured by Carlson et al. (2016) is the singular coloring agent in Jupiter's troposphere. In this work, we test the validity of the Crème Brûlée model of Jupiter's uppermost cloud deck using spectra measured during the Juno spacecraft's 5…
The asymmetric gravity field measured by the Juno spacecraft allowed estimation of the depth of Jupiter's zonal jets, showing that the winds extend approximately $3000$ km beneath the cloud-level. This estimate was based on an analysis using a combination of all measured odd gravity harmonics $J_{3}$, $J_{5}$, $J_{7}$, and $J_{9}$, but the wind profile dependence on each of them separately has not been investigated. Furthermore, these calculations assumed the meridional profile of the cloud-level wind extends to depth. However, it is possible that the interior jet profile varies from that of t…
One of Jupiter's most prominent atmospheric features, the Great Red Spot (GRS), has been observed for more than two centuries, yet little is known about its structure and dynamics below its observed cloud-level. While its anticyclonic vortex appearance suggests it might be a shallow weather-layer feature, the very long time span for which it was observed implies it is likely deeply rooted, otherwise it would have been sheared apart by Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. Determining the GRS depth will shed light not only on the processes governing the GRS, but on the dynamics of Jupiter's atmospher…
At mid-mission perijove 17, NASA's Juno mission has revealed a $7σ$ discrepancy between Jupiter's observed high-degree tidal response and the theoretical equilibrium tidal response, namely the Love number $k_{42}$. Here, we propose an interpretation for this puzzling disagreement based on an interior-orbital resonance between internal gravity waves trapped in Jupiter's dilute core and the orbital motion of Io. We use simple Jupiter models to calculate a fractional correction $Δk_{42}$ to the equilibrium tidal response that comes from the dynamical tidal response of a $g$-mode trapped in Jupite…
The dark colors of Jupiter's North Equatorial Belt (NEB, $7-17^\circ$N) appeared to expand northward into the neighboring zone in 2015, consistent with a 3-5 year cycle of activity in the NEB. Inversions of thermal-IR imaging from the Very Large Telescope revealed a moderate warming and reduction of aerosol opacity at the cloud tops at $17-20^\circ$N, suggesting subsidence and drying in the expanded sector. Two new thermal waves were identified during this period: (i) an upper tropospheric thermal wave (wavenumber 16-17, amplitude 2.5 K at 170 mbar) in the mid-NEB that was anti-correlated with…
In the last decades there have been an increasing interest in improving the accuracy of spacecraft navigation and trajectory data. In the course of this plan some anomalies have been found that cannot, in principle, be explained in the context of the most accurate orbital models including all known effects from classical dynamics and general relativity. Of particular interest for its puzzling nature, and the lack of any accepted explanation for the moment, is the flyby anomaly discovered in some spacecraft flybys of the Earth over the course of twenty years. This anomaly manifest itself as the…
Spatial variability of CH4 and C2H2 absorptions in Jupiter's auroral regions from Juno-UVS observations
University of Liège(列日大学);Aix-Marseille Université(艾克斯-马赛大学);National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF-IAPS)(意大利国家天体物理研究所);Southwest Research Institute(西南研究院)
Reflected sunlight observations from the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) on the Juno spacecraft were used to study the distribution of acetylene (C$_2$H$_2$) at Jupiter's south pole. We find that the shape of the C$_2$H$_2$ absorption feature varies significantly across the polar region, and this can be used to infer spatial variability in the C$_2$H$_2$ abundance. There is a localized region of enhanced C$_2$H$_2$ absorption which coincides with the location of Jupiter's southern polar aurora; the C$_2$H$_2$ abundance poleward of the auroral oval is a factor of 3 higher than adjacent quiescent…
We present multi-wavelength measurements of the thermal, chemical, and cloud contrasts associated with the visibly dark formations (also known as 5-$μ$m hot spots) and intervening bright plumes on the boundary between Jupiter's Equatorial Zone (EZ) and North Equatorial Belt (NEB). Observations made by the TEXES 5-20 $μ$m spectrometer at the Gemini North Telescope in March 2017 reveal the upper-tropospheric properties of 12 hot spots, which are directly compared to measurements by Juno using the Microwave Radiometer (MWR), JIRAM at 5 $μ$m, and JunoCam visible images. MWR and thermal-infrared sp…
Observations of the flow on Jupiter exists essentially only for the cloud-level, which is dominated by strong east-west jet-streams. These have been suggested to result from dynamics in a superficial thin weather-layer, or alternatively be a manifestation of deep interior cylindrical flows. However, it is possible that the observed winds are indeed superficial, yet there exists deep flow that is completely decoupled from it. To date, all models linking the wind, via the induced density anomalies, to the gravity field, to be measured by Juno, consider only flow that is a projection of the obser…
We characterise the origin and evolution of a mesoscale wave pattern in Jupiter's North Equatorial Belt (NEB), detected for the first time at 5 $μ$m using a 2016-17 campaign of `lucky imaging' from the VISIR instrument on the Very Large Telescope and the NIRI instrument on the Gemini observatory, coupled with M-band imaging from Juno's JIRAM instrument during the first seven Juno orbits. The wave is compact, with a $1.1-1.4^\circ$ longitude wavelength (wavelength 1,300-1,600 km, wavenumber 260-330) that is stable over time, with wave crests aligned largely north-south between $14$ and $17^\cir…
The microwave radiometer aboard the Juno spacecraft provided a measurement of the water abundance found to range between 1 and 5.1 times the protosolar abundance of oxygen in the near-equatorial region of Jupiter. Here, we aim to combine this up-to-date oxygen determination, which is likely to be more representative of the bulk abundance than the Galileo probe subsolar value, with the other known measurements of elemental abundances in Jupiter, to derive the formation conditions and initial composition of the building blocks agglomerated by the growing planet, and that determine the heavy elem…
Juno Microwave Radiometer Observations Reveal A Warmer Polar Atmosphere on Jupiter
University of Michigan(密歇根大学);University of Leicester(莱斯特大学);Weizmann Institute of Science(魏茨曼科学研究所);Université Côte d’Azur(蔚蓝海岸大学);University of Houston(休斯顿大学);Aeolis Research(埃俄利斯研究公司);INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali(意大利国家天体物理研究所空间天体物理学与行星科学研究所);Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology(加州理工学院喷气推进实验室)
Oxygen is the most common element after hydrogen and helium in Jupiter's atmosphere, and may have been the primary condensable (as water ice) in the protoplanetary disk. Prior to the Juno mission, in situ measurements of Jupiter's water abundance were obtained from the Galileo Probe, which dropped into a meteorologically anomalous site. The findings of the Galileo Probe were inconclusive because the concentration of water was still increasing when the probe died. Here, we initially report on the water abundance in the equatorial region, from 0 to 4 degrees north latitude, based on 1.25 to 22 G…
Juno Microwave Radiometer (MWR) observations of Jupiter's mid-latitudes reveal a strong correlation between brightness temperature contrasts and zonal winds, confirming that the banded structure extends throughout the troposphere. However, the microwave brightness gradient is observed to change sign with depth: the belts are microwave-bright in the $p<5$ bar range and microwave-dark in the $p>10$ bar range. The transition level (which we call the jovicline) is evident in the MWR 11.5 cm channel, which samples the 5-14 bar range when using the limb-darkening at all emission angles. The transiti…
Observations of Jupiter's deep atmosphere by the Juno spacecraft have revealed several puzzling facts: The concentration of ammonia is variable down to pressures of tens of bars, and is strongly dependent on latitude. While most latitudes exhibit a low abundance, the Equatorial Zone of Jupiter has an abundance of ammonia that is high and nearly uniform with depth. In parallel, the Equatorial Zone is peculiar for its absence of lightning, which is otherwise prevalent most everywhere else on the planet. We show that a model accounting for the presence of small-scale convection and water storms o…
Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) is a science education partnership among NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER), offering unique opportunities for K -12 students and their teachers. As part of a long-term Jupiter synchrotron radiation (JSR) flux density monitoring program, LCER has been carrying out Jupiter observations with some student participation. In this paper we present the results of processed data sets observed between March 6, 2015 and April 6 2018. The data are divided into 5 epochs, grouped by time. We derive J…
NASA's Juno mission recently reported Jupiter's high-degree (degree $\ell$, azimuthal order $m$ $=4,2$) Love number $k_{42}=1.289\pm0.063$ ($1σ$), an order of magnitude above the hydrostatic $k_{42}$ obtained in a nonrotating Jupiter model. After numerically modeling rotation, the hydrostatic $k_{42}=1.743\pm0.002$ is still $7σ$ away from the observation, raising doubts about our understanding of Jupiter's tidal response. Here, we use first-order perturbation theory to explain the hydrostatic $k_{42}$ result analytically. We use a simple Jupiter equation of state ($n=1$ polytrope) to obtain th…
In anticipation of new observational results for Jupiter's axial moment of inertia and gravitational zonal harmonic coefficients from the forthcoming Juno orbiter, we present a number of preliminary Jupiter interior models. We combine results from ab initio computer simulations of hydrogen-helium mixtures, including immiscibility calculations, with a new nonperturbative calculation of Jupiter's zonal harmonic coefficients, to derive a self-consistent model for the planet's external gravity and moment of inertia. We assume helium rain modified the interior temperature and composition profiles. …
The nature and structure of the observed east-west flows on Jupiter and Saturn has been one of the longest-lasting mysteries in planetary science. This mystery has been recently unraveled due to the accurate gravity measurements provided by the Juno mission to Jupiter and the Grand Finale of the Cassini mission to Saturn. These two experiments, which coincidentally happened around the same time, allowed determination of the vertical and meridional profiles of the zonal flows on both planets. This paper reviews the topic of zonal jets on the gas giants in light of the new data from these two ex…
Recent Juno observations have greatly extended the temporal and spatial coverage of lightning detection on Jupiter. We use these data to constrain a model of moist convection and lightning generation in Jupiter's atmosphere, and derive a roughly solar abundance of water at the base of the water cloud. Shallow lightning, observed by Juno (Becker et al., 2020, Nature, 584, 55-58) and defined as flashes originating at altitudes corresponding to pressure less than 2 bars, is reproduced, as is lightning at a deeper range of pressures, including those below the water cloud base. It is found that the…
In anticipation of improved observational data for Jupiter's gravitational field from the Juno spacecraft, we predict the static tidal response for a variety of Jupiter interior models based on ab initio computer simulations of hydrogen-helium mixtures. We calculate hydrostatic-equilibrium gravity terms using the non-perturbative concentric Maclaurin Spheroid (CMS) method that eliminates lengthy expansions used in the theory of figures. Our method captures terms arising from the coupled tidal and rotational perturbations, which we find to be important for a rapidly-rotating planet like Jupiter…
The detectability of planetesimal impacts on imaged exoplanets can be measured using Jupiter during the 1994 comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 events as a proxy. By integrating the whole planet flux with and without impact spots, the effect of the impacts at wavelengths from 2 - 4 microns is revealed. Jupiter's reflected light spectrum in the near-infrared is dominated by its methane opacity including a deep band at 2.3 microns. After the impact, sunlight that would have normally been absorbed by the large amount of methane in Jupiter's atmosphere was instead reflected by the cometary material from the i…
Jupiter's atmosphere is dominated by multiple jet streams which are strongly tied to its 3D atmospheric circulation. Lacking a rigid bottom boundary, several models exist for how the meridional circulation extends into the planetary interior. Here we show, collecting evidence from multiple instruments of the Juno mission, the existence of mid-latitudinal meridional circulation cells which are driven by turbulence, similar to the Ferrel cells on Earth. Different than Earth, which contains only one such cell in each hemisphere, the larger, faster rotating Jupiter can incorporate multiple cells. …
Cloud and ammonia vertical profiles in the equatorial atmosphere of Jupiter determined from visible to near-IR observations made by VLT/MUSE, Cassini/VIMS, IRTF/SpeX and Juno/JIRAM
University of Oxford(牛津大学);Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU(巴斯克大学);Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica(意大利国家天体物理研究所)
The precipitation of protons and electrons in Jupiter's auroral regions: a statistical comparison based on Juno/JEDI data
Aix-Marseille Université(艾克斯-马赛大学);CNES(法国国家空间研究中心);Institut Origines(起源研究所);LAM(宇宙学与天体物理学实验室);Laboratory of Atmospheric and Planetary Physics, STAR Institute, University of Liège(列日大学STAR研究所大气与行星物理实验室);Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP)(天体物理学与行星学研究所在);CNES-CNRS-Université de Toulouse(图卢兹大学CNES-CNRS联合机构);Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO)(高等航空航天学院);NASA Langley Research Center(美国国家航空航天局兰利研究中心);Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory(约翰斯·霍普金斯大学应用物理实验室);Northumbria University(诺森比亚大学);Weihai Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Shandong University(山东大学威海跨学科研究院)
Revealing the Spatial Distribution of Dust and Plasma Solitary Waves in Jupiter's Innermost Magnetosphere Using Juno Waves Observations
UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences(加州大学洛杉矶分校地球、行星与空间科学系);UCLA SPACE Institute(加州大学洛杉矶分校SPACE研究所);University of Iowa, Department of Physics and Astronomy(爱荷华大学物理与天文学系);Princeton University, Department of Astrophysical Sciences(普林斯顿大学天体物理学系);Jet Propulsion Laboratory(喷气推进实验室);Southwest Research Institute(西南研究院)
During 2016-17 the Juno and Cassini spacecraft will both perform close eccentric orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, obtaining high-precision gravity measurements for these planets. This data will be used to estimate the depth of the observed surface flows on these planets. All models to date, relating the winds to the gravity field, have been in the forward direction, thus allowing only calculation of the gravity field from given wind models. However, there is a need to do the inverse problem since the new observations will be of the gravity field. Here, an inverse dynamical model, is…
Energy distributions of precipitating electrons in Jupiter's auroral regions from combined Juno/JADE and Juno/JEDI measurements
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CNES, Institut Origines, LAM(艾克斯-马赛大学,法国国家科学研究中心,法国国家空间研究中心,起源研究所,天体物理学与行星学实验室);Laboratory of Planetary and Atmospheric Physics, STAR Institute, University of Liège(列日大学,STAR研究所,行星与大气物理实验室);Université de Toulouse, CNRS, CNES, Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie(图卢兹大学,法国国家科学研究中心,法国国家空间研究中心,天体物理学与行星学研究所以);Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE SUPAERO), Université de Toulouse(图卢兹大学,航空航天高级学院);Weihai Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Shandong University(山东大学,威海交叉科学研究院);Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory(约翰斯·霍普金斯大学应用物理实验室);Space Science and Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute(西南研究院,空间科学与工程部)
The Juno Orbiter has provided improved estimates of the even gravitational harmonics J2 to J8 of Jupiter. To compute higher-order moments, new methods such as the Concentric Maclaurin Spheroids (CMS) method have been developed which surpass the so far commonly used Theory of Figures (ToF) method in accuracy. This progress rises the question whether ToF can still provide a useful service for deriving the internal structure of giant planets in the Solar system. In this paper, I apply both the ToF and the CMS method to compare results for polytropic Jupiter and for the physical equation of state …
Up to date, only 13 firmly established triple microlensing events have been discovered, so the occurrence rates of microlensing two-planet systems and planets in binary systems are still uncertain. With the upcoming space-based microlensing surveys, hundreds of triple microlensing events will be detected. To provide clues for future observations and statistical analyses, we initiate a project to investigate the detectability of triple-lens systems with different configurations and observational setups. As the first step, in this work we develop the simulation software and investigate the detec…