Enhanced acetylene emission near the north pole of Jupiter

The present paper is concerned with observations of acetylene fundamental and hot band vibrational emission lines from the planet Jupiter. It is pointed out that the observation of a polar bright spot in the atmosphere of Jupiter is characterized by an enhancement in the individual lines of C2H2 which can be interpreted as an enhancement in the acetylene abundance. However, a purely thermal effect, or non-LTE phenomena cannot be excluded. The intensity of the observed hot band lines is also consistent with either hypothesis. The reported observations were performed with a cooled Fabry-Perot Grating Spectrometer (FPGS). Observations and instrumentation are considered in detail along with the calculation of synthetic spectra on the basis of a line-by-line computation, and the interpretation of the obtained data.