Observing Jupiter's polar stratospheric haze with HST/STIS. An HST White Paper

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that HST/STIS can monitor Jupiter's polar haze without exceeding brightness safety limits, enabling high-resolution observations of small-scale aerosol structures linked to FUV aurora.

Contribution

It shows that HST/STIS can safely observe Jupiter's polar haze at high resolution by simulating its output and comparing it to previous instruments, expanding observational capabilities.

Findings

STIS count rate per pixel is 11 times smaller than WFPC2 for similar observations.

STIS can safely observe bright Jupiter without exceeding safety thresholds.

Enables unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution of Jupiter's polar haze.

Abstract

The purpose of this HST white paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to monitor Jupiter's polar haze with HST/STIS without breaking the ground screening limit for bright objects. This demonstration rests on a thorough simulation of STIS output from an existing image obtained with HST/WFPC2. It is shown that the STIS NUV-MAMA + F25CIII filter assembly provides a count rate per pixel ~11 times smaller than that obtained for one pixel of WFPC2 WF3 CCD + F218W corresponding filter. This ratio is sufficiently large to cope with the bright solar light scattered by Jupiter's atmosphere, which was a lesser concern for WFPC2 CCD safety. These STIS images would provide unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution observations of small-scale stratospheric aerosol structures, possibly associated with Jupiter's complex FUV aurora.