Detection of Jovian seismic waves: a new probe of its interior structure

TL;DR

This paper reports the first detection of global seismic modes in Jupiter using radial velocity measurements, providing a new method to probe its deep interior and improve understanding of its formation and structure.

Contribution

It presents the first successful detection of Jupiter's global seismic modes, enabling seismology of the planet's interior for the first time.

Findings

Detected Jupiter's global seismic modes with specific frequencies and amplitudes.

Measured key seismic parameters consistent with current models.

Paves the way for interior structure studies of giant planets.

Abstract

Knowledge of Jupiter's deep interior would provide unique constraints on the formation of the Solar System. Measurement of its core mass and global composition would shed light on whether the planet formed by accretion or by direct gravitational collapse. At present, the inner structure of Jupiter is poorly constrained and seismology, which consists of identifying acoustic eigenmodes, offers a way to directly measure its deep sound speed profile, and thus its physical properties. Seismology of Jupiter has been considered since the mid 1970s, but hitherto the various attempts to detect global modes led, at best, to ambiguous results. We report the detection of global modes of Jupiter, based on radial velocity measurements performed with the SYMPA Fourier spectro-imager. The global seismic parameters that we measure include the frequency of maximum amplitude 1213+/-50 \mu Hz, the mean large frequency spacing between radial harmonics 155.3+/-2.2 \mu Hz and the mode maximum amplitude 49 (-10/+8) cm/s, all values that are consistent with current models of Jupiter. This result opens the way to the investigation of the inner structure of the Solar System's giant planets based on seismology techniques.