PlanetMag: Software for Evaluation of Outer Planet Magnetic Fields and Corresponding Excitations at Their Moons

Abstract

Abstract Spacecraft magnetic field measurements are able to tell us much about the planets' interior dynamics, composition, and evolutionary timeline. Magnetic fields also serve as the source for passive magnetic sounding of moons. Time‐varying magnetic fields experienced by the moons, due to relative planetary motion, interact electrically with conductive layers within these bodies (including salty subsurface oceans) to produce induced magnetic fields that are measurable by nearby, magnetometer‐equipped spacecraft. Many factors influence the character of the induced field, including the precise amplitude and phase of the time‐varying field, known as the excitation or driving field and represented by excitation moments. In this work, we present an open‐source Matlab software package named PlanetMag that features calculation of planetary magnetic field models available in the literature at arbitrary positions and times. The implemented models enable simultaneous inversion of the excitation moments across a range of oscillation frequencies using linear least‐squares methods and ephemeris data with the SPICE toolkit. Here we summarize the available magnetic field models and their associated coordinate systems. Precisely determined excitation moments are a critical input to forward models of global induced fields. Our results serve as a prerequisite to any precise comparison to spacecraft data for magnetic sounding investigation of giant planet moons—connecting the induced magnetic field to a moon's interior requires accurate representation of the oscillating excitation field. We calculate complex excitation moments relative to the J2000 epoch and share the results as ASCII tables compatible with related software packages intended for induction response calculations.

Keywords

• magnetic induction
• driving field
• excitation moments
• planetary magnetic fields