High-Resolution Ten-Micron Spectroscopy of Ammonia And
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ICARUS 131, 317±333 (1998) ARTICLE NO. IS975868 High-Resolution 10-micronmeter Spectroscopy of Ammonia and Phosphine Lines on Jupiter Luisa-MarõÂa Lara1 and Bruno BeÂzard2 DeÂpartement de Recherche Spatiale, Observatoire de Paris (Section de Meudon), 92195 Meudon Principal Cedex, France E-mail: [email protected] Caitlin A. Grif®th2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011-6010 John H. Lacy2 Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712-1083 and Tobias Owen Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 Received April 2, 1997; revised November 6, 1997 latitudes 308±358S. This variation is not correlated with the 200-mbar temperature. It can be explained by a decrease of High spectral resolution measurements of NH3 and PH3 lines on Jupiter in the 10.5- to 11.2-mm range are presented. Observa- the eddy mixing coef®cient near 240 mbar from p4000 to #400 2 21 tions, recorded on January 21±23, 1991, cover the 108±408S cm sec between the two latitude ranges. The PH3 mixing 27 latitude range and several longitudes including the Great Red ratio near 580 mbar lies between 1.7 and 2.6 3 10 in the Spot (GRS). Information on the temperature in the upper tropo- observed regions. At all longitudes, PH3 varies smoothly with sphere was retrieved from the continuum radiance at wave- latitude, decreasing by p30% from 108 to 358S. This variation lengths around 12.8 and 17.8 mm. At all observed longitudes, may also re¯ect a decrease in the strength of the eddy mixing the 200-mbar temperature ®eld is minimum at latitudes of near 580 mbar or at deeper levels in the atmosphere. 1998 208±258S near the location of the South Tropical Zone, in Academic Press Key Words: Jupiter, atmosphere; atmospheres, composition; agreement with Voyager infrared retrievals. This minimum atmospheres, structure; infrared observations. temperature is lower over the GRS than at other longitudes. The ammonia mixing ratio at p380 mbar is not signi®cantly enhanced over the GRS. The phosphine abundance probed at 1. INTRODUCTION p580 mbar is also not enhanced (within a precision of 10%), suggesting that this molecule is not a precursor of the reddish The encounters of Pioneer 10 and 11 and of the Voyager chromophores. The NH3 abundance at 380 mbar varies highly with latitude and longitude, a possible consequence of the active 1 and 2 spacecrafts revealed a variety of colorful features jovian meteorology. At the resolution of our observations in Jupiter's atmosphere. Most noticeable is the Great Red Spot (GRS), a long-lived vigorous anticyclonic feature (p8000 km), the NH3 humidity at this altitude ranges between 15 and 100% throughout the available data set. Above the cloud characterized most of the time by a pronounced reddish tops, the NH3 mixing ratio in the 240-mbar region reaches a tint. The potential chromophores proposed to explain the maximum near 158±188S and decreases by a factor of p40 at dominant brownish coloration of the planet include phos- phorus, nitriles, and sulfur compounds. Prinn and Lewis (1975) calculated that phosphine (PH3), upwelled from 1 Also at Instituto de AstrofõÂsica de AndalucõÂa, Apdo. 3004, 18080 the deep atmosphere, can supply enough P to the upper Granada, Spain. 4 2 Visiting astronomer at the Infrared Telescope Facility which is oper- troposphere to cause the red coloration if the eddy diffu- 6 2 21 ated by the University of Hawaii under contract with the National Aero- sion coef®cient in this region is p 10 cm s . The possibil- nautics and Space Administration. ity that complex nitriles provide Jupiter's red chromophore 317 0019-1035/98 $25.00 Copyright 1998 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 318 LARA ET AL. may be tested with measurements of NH3 or of the simplest TABLE I nitrile HCN, supposed to be intermediates in the produc- Irshell Observations tion of these organic compounds (Woeller and Ponnamper- Resolution uma 1969). Sulfur compounds are unlikely to be the cause Wavenumber (FWHM) Longitude of the coloration, since their precursor, H2S, is scarce in (cm21) (cm21) (System II) the upper troposphere. Observations of the vertical distri- Temperature 560 0.06 0±408, 110±1408 bution of NH3 ,PH3, and HCN are thus very important, 8 8 8 not only as tests of the ®rst two hypotheses for Jupiter's red Clouds 781 0.11 0±40 , 110±140 , 310±360 NH3 lines 892.0 0.05 2258, 2408, 245±2908 coloration, but also because constraints on their vertical 915.7 0.10 1808, 2008 distributions could improve our understanding of the hori- 918.6 0.10 110±1408 zontal variations in the strength of the vertical transport. 921.3 0.10 30±1508 Grif®th et al. (1992) used Voyager infrared spectra to 923.6 0.10 30±508, 1108 PH3 lines 944.2 0.11 108, 30±508, 190±2408 compare the tropospheric abundances of NH3 and PH3 in 954.4 0.12 30±508, 1208 Jupiter's GRS to the composition of the surrounding South 974.0 0.13 220±2508 Tropical Zone (STZ). They investigated how the dynamics of the GRS might affect its chemical composition and pos- sibly explain its peculiar color. Surprisingly, they found that, above the 350-mbar region, NH3 was depleted over 2. OBSERVATIONS the GRS relative to the neighboring regions. The results Observations were conducted at the NASA/IRTF on on PH3 were also unexpected, as no signi®cant variation of its abundance was detected (within the error margin, the nights of January 21 and 23, 1991 UT. We used the i.e., 255 and 175%). These observations are at odds with Irshell spectrometer which included a 10 spatial 3 64 spec- the usual picture of rising motions in the cold zones causing tral element array (Lacy et al. 1989). The 10-arcsec long an increase in the concentration of gases which are affected slit was oriented along the planetocentric north±south di- 8 by condensation or by photodissociation such as ammonia rection and centered at a latitude of 22 S. Ten latitudes spanning 108 to 368S could be simultaneously observed at and phosphine. The depletion of NH might result from 3 a given longitude. The slit was opened to 2 arcsec, yielding some unidenti®ed chemical processes at work in the GRS. a resolving power of about 104. This represents an improve- In January 1991, B. BeÂzard, C. Grif®th, and J. Lacy ment by a factor of about 50 over the Voyager infrared conducted an observing program at the Infrared Telescope observations. The pixel spacing along the slit was 1 arcsec Facility (IRTF) devoted to mapping the chemical composi- and the resolution approximately 2 arcsec. We estimate tion of Jupiter at latitudes and longitudes around those of a pointing uncertainty of about 1 arcsec, similar to the the GRS, using 10-em high-resolution spectroscopy. The pixel spacing. goal was to investigate the chemistry and dynamics of the The full set of observations is summarized in Table I. GRS following the work of Grif®th et al. based on Voyager The continuum level in the 560.6 and 781.1 cm21 intervals spectra at a lower spectral resolution. Spectral regions con- was used to derive information on the temperature pro®le taining HCN lines were observed, after Woeller and Pon- in the upper troposphere. Spectra around 892.4, 916.1, namperuma's (1969) suggestion that hydrogen cyanide 918.9, 921.7, and 923.2 cm21 include lines of various might be responsible for the brownish coloration of the 14 strengths from NH3 which can be used to retrieve the jovian atmosphere and more speci®cally of the GRS. ammonia vertical pro®le in the upper troposphere (250± BeÂzard et al. (1995) did not ®nd evidence for hydrogen 600 mbar). Weak phosphine lines, present at 944.2, 954.4, cyanide absorption in excess of 2% of the continuum in and 974.0 cm21 provide information on the mixing ratio any of the regions investigated (between latitudes 108 and around 550 mbar. 368S, excluding the GRS). An upper limit on the deep We applied the procedures for ¯at ®elding, correction 28 tropospheric HCN mixing ratio of 1.0 3 10 was derived. of atmospheric opacity, and intensity calibration described The present study reports the analysis of the spectral in Lacy et al. (1989) and Achterman (1992) with some data for NH3 and PH3 recorded during this same run at adjustments in the data reduction (detailed in BeÂzard et al. the IRTF. In Section 2 we present the high±resolution 1995 as well as the data acquisition). Individual spectra measurements. Section 3 describes the radiative transfer were recorded with on±source integration times of 13 s at analysis of these data and the retrieved information on the 560.6 cm21,and9satother wavenumbers. The rms noise 21 22 temperature, and vertical pro®les of NH3 and PH3 in the equivalent spectral radiance (in units of erg s cm upper troposphere as a function of latitude and longitude. sr21/cm21) is about 0.008 at 560.6 cm21, 0.006 at 781.1 cm21, Results are discussed in Section 4 and a conclusion is pre- and 0.004 for wavenumbers at or longer than 883.0 cm21. sented in Section 5. Although the absolute radiance is estimated to be uncer- NH3 AND PH3 ON JUPITER 319 tain by p20%, past experience indicates that the relative this function overlaps with the region where the cloud calibration of the different rows in the detector array is model is set, detailed calculations show that the 560.6-cm21 better than 2%.