On the possibility of separation of aerosol and methane absorption in the long-wavelength spectral range for giant planets

Abstract

To determine the aerosol absorption component of the effective optical depth τeffκ, a special method has been developed. It is based on the implausible effect of the decrease of the aerosol scattering component τeffa in dependence on the atmospheric pressure P, if τeffκ = 0. It is the elimination of this effect by selecting the values of τeffκ that allows the latter to be determined. This method was tested with the data of observations of the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) of Jupiter’s disk in the methane absorption bands at λ = 619 and 727 nm. This allowed us to determine the values of τeffκ and the imaginary part of the refractive index of aerosol particles (ni = 0.00063, 0.00065, 0.0007, and 0.00069 at λ = 605.5, 631.3, 714.7, and 741.4 nm, respectively) and to correctly specify the characteristic of the vertical structure of clouds of the planet.