Published by Oxford University Press 2005.
Comparison of high-energy trapped particle environments at the earth and jupiter
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 122-107, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
* Corresponding author: insoo.jun{at}jpl.nasa.gov
The Van Allen belts of the trapped energetic particles in the Earth's magnetosphere were discovered by the Explorer I satellite in 1958. In addition, in 1959, it was observed that UHF radio emissions from Jupiter probably had a similar sourcethe Jovian radiation belts. In this paper, the global characteristics of these two planets' trapped radiation environments and respective magnetospheres are compared and state-of-the-art models used to generate estimates of the high-energy electron (
100 keV) and proton (
1 MeV) populationsthe dominant radiation particles in these environments. The models used are the AP8/AE8 series for the Earth and the DivineGarrett/GIRE model for Jupiter. To illustrate the relative magnitude of radiation effects at each planet, radiation transport calculations were performed to compute the total ionising dose levels at the geosynchronous orbit for the Earth and at Europa (Jupiter's 4th largest moon) for Jupiter. The results show that the dose rates are
0.1 krad(Si) d1 at the geosynchronous orbit and
30 krad(Si) d1 at Europa for a 2.5 mm spherical shell aluminium shielda factor of
300 between the two planets.