HR: 16:30h
AN: P44A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Scattering of Solar X-Rays by Jupiter and Saturn
AU: * Cravens, T E
EM: cravens@ku.edu
AF: University of Kansas, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Lawrence, KS 66045 United States
AU: Clark, J D
EM: jdclark@ku.edu
AF: University of Kansas, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Lawrence, KS 66045 United States
AU: Bhardwaj, A
EM: Anil.Bhardwaj@msfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Space Science Branch, XD12 , Huntsville, AL 35805 United States
AU: Elsner, R
EM: ron.elsner@msfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Space Science Branch, XD12 , Huntsville, AL 35805 United States
AU: Waite, J H
EM: hunterw@umich.edu
AF: University of Michigan, Dept. of Atmos., Oceanic, and Space Sci., Ann Arbor, MI 48109 United States
AU: Acton, L
EM: acton@physics.montana.edu
AF: Montana State Univ, Physics Dept, Bozeman, MT 59717 United States
AU: Maurellis, A N
EM: a.n.maurellis@sron.nl
AF: Space Research Organization Netherlands, SRON, Utrecht, Netherlands
AU: Gladstone, R
EM: randy.gladstone@swri.org
AF: Southwest Research Instit., 6220 Culebra Rd., San Antonio, TX 78238 United States
AB: Soft X-ray emission has been observed from the disks of both Jupiter and Saturn, as well as from the auroral regions of these planets. The low-latitude disk emission as observed by ROSAT, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and XMM-Newton appears to be uniformly distributed across the disk and to be correlated with solar activity. These characteristics suggest that the source of the disk x-rays are: (1) elastic scattering of solar X-rays by atmospheric neutrals (2) absorption of solar X-rays in the carbon K-shell followed by fluorescent emission. The carbon atoms are found in methane molecules located below the homopause. In this paper we present the results of calculations of the scattering albedo and of the emitted x-ray intensity for a range of atmospheric abundances and for a number of solar irradiance spectra. The model calculations are compared with recent x-ray observations of Jupiter and Saturn.
DE: 0669 Scattering and diffraction
DE: 5704 Atmospheres--composition and chemistry
DE: 5757 Remote sensing
DE: 7554 X rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly