Jupiter's Coordinate System Transformations: A Guide for Future Studies of the Jovian System

Abstract

AbstractThe Juno mission, launched in 2011, has significantly advanced our understanding of Jupiter's gravitational field, the solar wind and interplanetary conditions along its orbit, the evolution of Jupiter's high‐latitude magnetosphere and aurorae, the dynamics of plasma and electromagnetic fields in its magnetosphere, etc. As a result, new requirements for the definition and improvement of existing coordinate systems have arisen due to engineering implementation and the understanding of various scientific questions that rely on different preferred coordinate systems. In this paper, we first review the primary Jupiter's coordinate systems, including newly defined systems, such as the Jupiter Solar MAGnetosphere (JSMAG) and Jupiter Equatorial Inertial (JEIJ2000) coordinate systems, as well as a precisely defined orthogonal Jupiter Heliospheric (JH) coordinate system. We have also improved several magnetic field‐related coordinate systems and these systems support different Jupiter magnetic field models. The angular deviation of solar position‐related coordinate systems oriented by the semi‐analytical ephemerides TOP2013 is less than 70 milliarcseconds during the time span from 1800 to 2200 year. In addition, we propose a relatively simple, fast, and accurate transformation method, addressing the complexity of traditional coordinate system transformations entirely based on rotation axes and angles. This method introduces a basic coordinate system in which the unit vectors of all coordinate axes are represented. Finally, the comparison of our calculation with the published data indicates the high efficiency and accuracy of this work, which can be used as a basic tool for future Jovian system explorations from 1800 to 2200 year.