Optical and IR spectroscopy of Europa Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Trumbo S.K.
  2. Brown M.E.
  3. Hand K.P.
  4. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

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.

Keywords
  1. solar-system
  2. solar-system-planets
  3. visible-astronomy
  4. spectroscopy
  5. infrared-astronomy
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2020AJ....160..282T
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/160/282
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/160/282
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.51600282

Access

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http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/160/282
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History

2021-03-04T07:40:29Z
Resource record created
2021-03-04T07:40:29Z
Created
2021-07-05T09:04:52Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr