Current thinking about Jupiter's magnetic anomaly

Repeated imaging of Jupiter's aurora has shown that the northern main oval has a distorted 'kidney bean' shape in the general range of 90-150o System III longitude, which appears unchanged since 1994. While it is more difficult to observe the conjugate regions in the southern aurora, no corresponding distortion appears in the south. Recent improved accuracy in locating the auroral footprint emission of Io has provided new information about the geometry of Jupiter's magnetic field in this and other areas. The persistent pattern of the main oval implies a disturbance of the local magnetic field, and the increased latitudinal separation of the locus of the Io footprint from the main oval implies a locally weaker field strength. The most recent images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope Advance Camera for Surveys (ACS) allow us to complement previous observations with the location of the auroral footprints of Io, Europa, and Ganymede in the region of interest. Their footpaths vary in parallel and form a kink in the 90-150° S3 sector which strongly suggests the presence of a magnetic anomaly in this region.