Albedo features and jovian seismology

Schmider et al. (Schmider, F.-X., B. Mosser, and E. Fossat 1991. Astron. Astrophy. 248, 281-291) and Mosser et al. (Mosser, B., D. Mékarnia, J.P. Maillard, J. Gay, D. Gautier, and P. Delache 1993. Astron. Astrophys. 267, 604-622) report detection of Doppler shifts in reflected solar radiation from Jupiter purportedly induced by p-mode oscillations of the planet. We consider the possibility that these observations may be recording quasi-periodic albedo features in Jupiter’s atmosphere rather than or in addition to jovian oscillations. We model the Fourier Transform Spectroscopy method of p-mode detection in detail and employ near-IR methane-band images of Jupiter to test the albedo feature hypothesis. The low frequency portion (<700 μHz) of the Fourier spectrum presented by Mosser et al. is indeed found to be contaminated by the photometric signal of albedo features rotating with Jupiter. Albedo features apparently are not responsible for the bulk of the higher frequency signal attributed to p -modes.