Regular Article

Interaction of photoionisation and meteoric input in the atmosphere of Jupiter^⋆

¹ College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, G.P.O. Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
² College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4810 Australia
³ Instituto de Física Fundamental, CSIC, Serrano 113-bis, 28006 Madrid, Spain
⁴ Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
⁵ Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, MG 36936-900, Brazil

^a e-mail: laurence.campbell@flinders.edu.au

Received: 24 September 2019
Received in final form: 23 October 2019
Published online: 10 December 2019

Abstract

Interplanetary dust grains and meteoroids are assumed to deliver oxygen to the atmosphere of Jupiter. A current photochemical model overestimates the resultant density of water relative to an available measurement. This paper investigates whether the interaction of photoionisation and meteoric products can explain that discrepancy. As any process that breaks up water molecules is likely to produce hydroxyl, the predicted densities of hydroxyl are also investigated as a possible target for remote sensing. It is found that the densities of water are not changed by the addition of photoionisation, but that higher OH densities are predicted above about 400 km.