Auroral polar dawn spots: Signatures of internally driven reconnection processes at Jupiter's magnetotail

Abstract

We report the presence of polar spots located in the dawn auroral region, based on the HST ACS 2007 campaign. We study the location of these features in the equatorial plane as well as their time scales and periodicities, based on a comprehensive series of images taken between February 21 and June 11, 2007. It is shown that the majority of polar dawn spots magnetically map to the dawn sector. Additionally, they occur quasi‐periodically every 2–3 days, a periodicity observed for the first time in auroral features. Because of their mapped location and their periodic cycle, we interpret the polar dawn spots as signatures of internally driven magnetic reconnection in the Jovian magnetotail.