Spatiotemporal Variations of Temperature in Jupiter’s Upper Atmosphere

Global temperatures in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere are poorly constrained. Other than an in situ measurement by the Galileo Probe, all temperature data come from remote-sensing methods that primarily rely on emissions from H 3+ , the dominant molecular ion in giant planet ionospheres. While H 3+ temperature serves as a proxy for thermospheric temperature under specific conditions, the available H 3+ observations at Jupiter have limited spatial coverage and a wide range of reported temperatures that complicate analysis of atmospheric temperatures. We present high-resolution H 3+ temperature maps near local solar noon collected over 3 half-nights in 2022 and 2023. Pole-to-pole temperature structure is consistent across time spans of 1 month to 1 yr. Median equatorial (±25∘ latitude) temperature across all three nights is 762 ± 43 K, with night-to-night differences of