Jupiter's Radio Emission in 3D

High energy electrons trapped in Jupiter's radiation belts emit synchrotron radiation at radio wavelengths.

Three movies show 3-D reconstructions of Jupiter's synchrotron radiation at a wavelength of 20 cm. The angular resolution is about 0.3 Jovian radii.

The data were taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (observations by Dulk, Leblanc and Sault -- A&A, 319, 274 (1997) and A&A, 319, 282 (1997)) and the Very Large Array of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the United States (de Pater and Sault -- JGR, 103, 19973 [1998]). The 3-D reconstruction software was developed at the Australia Telescope National Facility (Sault, Oosterloo, Dulk and Leblanc A&A, 324, 1190 (1997)). Software to model the synchrotron radiation was developed by de Pater and others (JGR, 86, 3397 [1980]; JGR, 102, 22043 [1997]).

The Movies

• The ATCA data; the planet is seen in red. Postcript file of first frame, or AVI animation.
• The VLA data; the planet is seen in white. for a postscript file of the first frame, or AVI animation.
• Model of the synchrotron radiation in total intensity. The planet itself is not modelled. for a postscript file of the first frame, or AVI animation.