New Approaches to Retrievals of Jovian Atmospheric State

Presenter(s): Padma A. Yanamandra-Fisher

Affiliation(s): The PACA Project and Space Science Institute

Session details: Saturday, 2020-04-11 01:00:00, STAR

Abstract

Jupiter’s atmosphere exhibits dramatic and dynamic changes at all levels. With the arrival of the NASA/Juno spacecraft at Jupiter in 2016, combined with ground-based observations (current and legacy, professional and amateur) of Jupiter, we seek to characterize the variability of Jupiter’s atmosphere at various latitudes as a function of time. The data used in our study includes a combination of professional and amateur observations in the spectral range of 0.5– 4.0 microns, from 2015 to present (and legacy data from 1991 as needed). Traditional atmospheric retrieval methods use a priori assumptions of the atmosphere, and require large amounts of clock time to run. I present non-traditional approaches via professional-amateur observer collaborations to understand the observed variations in Jupiter’s atmosphere, such as regular cylindrical and geospatial mapping of the planetary disk; statistical approaches such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to study the interaction of discrete features on the planet; limb polarization, allowing the probing of hazes in the atmosphere; and visualization of these results. These approaches take advantage of emerging fields such as virtual reality, astrostatistics, and the involvement of a global network of amateur astronomers via the FACA_Jupiter Facebook group. Going forward after the completion of the NASA/Juno mission, PACA_Jupiter will continue pro-am collaborations with amateurs and include legacy data to compare if there is reproducibility in the variability data. Other approaches that will continue and be updated are: multiple approaches in parallel: image planet, apply GIS analysis, visualization to explore variability; compare with traditional methods to determine latent variables of the atmosphere that influence changes in the atmosphere; and incorporate other observations such as thermal data, spectra, and polarization.

Biography

Padma studies the nature of light scattering in various media pertaining to the solar system. Her current research focuses on seasonal and temporal changes on Jupiter and Saturn; understanding the thermophysical properties of solar system ices, including observations and models of comets; and polarimetric exploration of the solar system, including the Sun. Padma received her Ph.D. from University of Denver, with her thesis addressing particle size distribution in Saturn’s and Uranus’ rings using Voyager 2 data. She did her post-Doc at JPL during the Voyager 2–Neptune encounter, and joined the JPL Earth and Planetary Atmospheres group as a Research Scientist. Her extra-curricular activities involve travel (a favorite destination is Hawaii), gardening, wine-making, and enjoying family and friends.