What the upper atmospheres of Giant Planets reveal

O'Donoghue, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4218-1191 and Stallard, T. (2022) What the upper atmospheres of Giant Planets reveal. Remote Sensing, 14 (24). 6326. ISSN 2072-4292 doi: 10.3390/rs14246326

Abstract/Summary

The upper atmospheres of the Giant Planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are transition regions between meteorological layers and outer space. As a result of their exceptionally rarefied nature, they are highly sensitive and therefore revealing probes of the forcing exerted both from above and below. This review provides an overview of these upper atmospheres and the major processes that take place within them, including their powerful auroras, the giant planet ‘energy crisis’ and the decay of Saturn’s rings into the planet. We discuss the many remote-sensing tools that have been used to understand them, for example, large ground-based observatories such as the Keck telescope, space-based observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and orbiters such as the Cassini spacecraft. Looking into the future, we discuss the possibilities afforded by the latest and next generation of observatories and space missions, such as the JamesWebb Space Telescope.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/114999
Identification Number/DOI	10.3390/rs14246326
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	MDPI
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