PHOSPHINE ABSORPTION IN THE 5-MU-M WINDOW OF JUPITER

Since the original suggestion by Gillett et al. (1969) it has generally been assumed that the region of partial transparency near 5 μm in Jupiter's atmosphere (the 5-μm window) is bounded by the v4 NH3 at 6.1 μm and the v3 CH4 band at 3.3 μm. New measurements of Jupiter and of laboratory phosphine (PH3) samples show that PH3 is a significant contributor to the continuum opacity in the window and in fact defines its short-wavelength limit. This has important implications for the use of 5-mu;m observations as a means to probe the deep atmospheric structure of Jupiter. The abundance of PH3 which results from a comparison of Jovian and laboratory spectra is about 3 to 5 cm-am. This is five to eight times less than that found by Larson et al. [Astrophys. J. (1977) 211, 972-979] in the same spectral region, but is in good agreement with the result of Tokunaga et al. [Astrophys. J. (1979) 232, 603-615] from 10-μm observations. © 1979.