Kong Dali, Zhang Keke, Schubert Gerald
Key Laboratory of Planetary Sciences, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200030, China.
Center for Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics, University of Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK.
Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 23;6:23497. doi: 10.1038/srep23497.
Convective motion in the deep metallic hydrogen region of Jupiter is believed to generate its magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. The amplitude, structure and depth of the convective motion are unknown. A promising way of probing the Jovian convective dynamo is to measure its effect on the external gravitational field, a task to be soon undertaken by the Juno spacecraft. We calculate the gravitational signature of non-axisymmetric convective motion in the Jovian metallic hydrogen region and show that with sufficiently accurate measurements it can reveal the nature of the deep convection.
人们认为,木星深层金属氢区域的对流运动产生了太阳系中最强的磁场。对流运动的幅度、结构和深度尚不清楚。探测木星对流发电机的一种很有前景的方法是测量其对外部引力场的影响,这是“朱诺号”航天器即将承担的一项任务。我们计算了木星金属氢区域非轴对称对流运动的引力特征,并表明通过足够精确的测量可以揭示深层对流的性质。