Comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9: No effect on the Io plasma torus

Creators: Brown, Michael E.; Moyer, Elizabeth J.; Bouchez, Antonin H.; Spinrad, Hyron

Abstract

Observations of the Io plasma torus made before, during, and after the impact of Comet Shoemaker‐Levy 9 with Jupiter reveal no comet‐induced changes. Three weeks of high spectral‐resolution ground‐based visible spectroscopy show no changes larger than typical day‐to‐day variations in the torus densities, ion temperatures, or rotation velocities. Comparison with six months of identically obtained data from 1991 and 1992 also shows no differences.

Additional Information

© 1995 American Geophysical Union. Received 15 August 1994; accepted 13 February 1995. These observations were made possible by NSF Grant # FD-93-22119. Additional support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number HF-1056.01-94A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. MEB and EJM acknowledge the support of NASA and NSF graduate fellowships, respectively, and thank Jim Burroughs for making the long stay at Lick Observatory bearable.

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