Observations at the inner edge of the Jovian current sheet: evidence for a dynamic magnetosphere

It is widely recognized that Io, the innermost of the Galilean satellites, releases matter into the rapidly-rotating Jovian magnetosphere at rates that may be as high as a ton per second. Following ionization, this iogenic, heavy-ion plasma dominates the dynamics of the Jovian magnetosphere. On average this plasma must be lost at a rate that balances its generation but we do not know whether this process is steady or intermittent. Measurements by the Galileo magnetometer suggest that this process is unsteady. By estimating the magnetic and particle stresses from these observations, we further can derive a mass density profile that is consistent with earlier measurements of the current sheet density and that is consistent with estimates of the radial transport of mass in the middle Jovian magnetosphere.