Peculiar oscillations in the microwave emission of Jupiter during the impact of K fragment of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Abstract

In this article we report the peculiar oscillations in the intensity of microwave (4.15 GHz) emission seen during the impact of K fragment of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on July 19, 1994. The oscillations begin at 10h 13m 25s UT suddenly with a frequency of ~0.3 Hz and gradually the frequency of these oscillations increases to ~ 1 Hz. The oscillations are not due to local atmosphere or the radio interference from signals of geostationary satellite. They are intrinsic to the microwave emission from Jupiter during the impact of K fragment. Peak-to-peak amplitude of the oscillations is about 34% of the total microwave emission from Jupiter. If we assume that only 50% of the microwave emission is non-thermal and only the non-thermal emission suffered oscillations, then the oscillations are about 68% of the non-thermal emission from Jupiter. The observations also indicate that there are three continuum enhancements during this event and periodic oscillations almost all through. The third enhancement was the largest and during this enhancement there were some additional aperiodic variations. The aperiodic variations were of the order of few minutes and were possibly generated by the gravity waves. The periodic oscillations could be synchrotron emission modulated by the plasma oscillation in the outer magnetosphere. kg]Key words