HST/STIS images of UV auroral footprints from Io, Europa, and Ganymede.

Ultraviolet images of Jupiter's aurora have been obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since September 1997 with much higher sensitivity than earlier cameras. Higher sensitivity permits shorter exposures, freezing Jupiter's rotation and providing the highest angular resolution obtained to date. This combination of sensitivity and resolution has revealed new emissions from the magnetic footprints of Io, Europa, and Ganymede, which will be reported and discussed. Io's auroral footprint, while well studied with earlier cameras, appears highly extended at a low brightness in the wake or plasma flow direction. Ganymede's auroral footprint emission is now well established from the repeated appearance of this feature under the magnetic field trace of Ganymede, and there is initial evidence for auroral emission at Europa's magnetic footprint. Ganymede's auroral footprint appears consistently equatorward of the main auroral oval, which clearly constrains the main oval auroral currents to originate from beyond about 20 R_J. The observation that the main oval emissions are observed to corotate with Jupiter's magnetic field further constrains the origin of these currents to be within about 30 R_J, so that the source region for the main oval auroral is now fairly well constrained to a region in Jupiter's middle magnetosphere and within the current sheet. This work was supported by NASA under grant GO-7308.01-96A to the University of Michigan.