Optical and IR spectroscopy of Europa

DOI

The composition of Europa's trailing hemisphere reflects the combined influences of endogenous geologic resurfacing and exogenous sulfur radiolysis. Using spatially resolved visible-wavelength spectra of Europa obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, we map multiple spectral features across the trailing hemisphere and compare their geographies with the distributions of large-scale geology, magnetospheric bombardment, and surface color. Based on such comparisons, we interpret some aspects of our spectra as indicative of purely exogenous sulfur radiolysis products and other aspects as indicative of radiolysis products formed from a mixture of endogenous material and magnetospheric sulfur. The spatial distributions of two of the absorptions seen in our spectra-a widespread downturn toward the near-UV and a distinct feature at 530nm-appear consistent with sulfur allotropes previously suggested from ground-based spectrophotometry. However, the geographies of two additional features-an absorption feature at 360nm and the spectral slope at red wavelengths-are more consistent with endogenous material that has been altered by sulfur radiolysis. We suggest irradiated sulfate salts as potential candidates for this material, but we are unable to identify particular species with the available data.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.51600282
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/160/282
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/160/282
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/160/282
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/160/282
Provenance
Creator Trumbo S.K.; Brown M.E.; Hand K.P.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2021
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Solar System Astronomy