Program Details

• Keywords

  Chemical Composition
  Giant Planets
  Planetary Atmospheres
  Planetary Satellites
  Space Weather

• Investigators

  Dominique Bockelee-Morvan 
  Al Conrad 
  Leigh Fletcher 
  Patrick M. Fry 
  Alistair Glasse
  Ricardo Hueso 
  Katherine de Kleer 
  Emmanuel Lellouch 
  Henrik Melin 
  Glenn S. Orton
  Mark R. Showalter
  Anand Sivaramakrishnan 
  Michael H. Wong 

• Abstract

  We have brought together a large and diverse community in the US and Europe to observe the jovian system, with the following scientific goals:

  • Characterize Jupiter’s cloud layers, winds, composition, auroral activity, and temperature structure; 
  • Produce maps of the atmosphere and surface of volcanically-active Io and icy satellite Ganymede to constrain their thermal and atmospheric structure, and search for plumes; and
  • Characterize the ring structure, and its sources, sinks and evolution.

  Our program will thus demonstrate the capabilities of JWST’s instruments on one of the largest and brightest sources in the Solar System and on very faint targets next to it. We will also observe weak emission/absorption bands on strong continua, and with NIRIS/AMI we will maximize the Strehl ratio on unresolved features, such as Io’s volcanoes.

• Instrument and Mode

  MIRI: Medium Resolution Spectroscopy
  NIRCam: Imaging
  NIRISS: Aperture Masking Interferometry
  NIRSpec: IFU Spectroscopy

• What Does the Program Enable for the User Community?

  We will deliver a number of science enabling products that will facilitate community science, including:

  • Characterizing Jupiter’s scattered light in the context of scientific observations;
  • Resolve point sources with AMI in a crowded field (Io’s volcanoes), and compare this to classical observations; and
  • Develop tools to mosaic/visualize spectral datacubes using MIRI and NIRSpec on Jupiter.

  Finally, our program will also set a first temporal benchmark to study time variations in the jovian system and any interconnectivity (e.g., through its magnetic field) during JWST’s lifetime.

• How Will You Engage the User Community?

    

• Deliverables

  https://jwstgiantplanets.github.io/web/     

  https://github.com/JWSTGiantPlanets/

• Team Website URL

    https://jwstgiantplanets.github.io/web/