Observations of Europa's Tenuous Atmosphere (P. 485-505)
T Observations of Europa's Tenuous Atmosphere M. A. McGrath NASA Marshall Space Flight Center C. J. Hansen and A. R. Hendrix NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology Europa is known to possess a predominantly molecular oxygen atmosphere produced by sputtering of its icy surface. This atmosphere , which is diagnostic of surface composition and processes, has been characterized by the Hubble Space Telescope. Galileo, Ca ssini, and ground based observation s. The primary means of detecting Europa's atmosphere is via emi ssion from the atomic constituents. The relative strengths of the atomic oxygen emission lines allow infer ence of a dominant 0 2 component. Oxygen, sodium, and potassium are the minor constituent s detected to date. An ionosphere has also been detected on several occasions by Galileo radio occultation measurements, the presence of which appears to require a sunlit, plasma bombarded (trailin g) .hemisphere . Neither the spatial distribution of the oxygen emission associated with II the atmosphere, nor the obvious variability of the atmospheric emissions and the ionospheric densities, has been adequately explained to date. 1. INTRODUCTION of hydrogen (H) (Judge and Carlson, 1974), sodium (Na) (Brown, 1974), and potassium (K) (Trafton, 1975) clouds Europa is one of a growing cadre of solar system object s associated with Io seemed to confirm these early expecta that possess tenuou s atmospheres. Their discovery - at tions. Pioneer IO observations of Europa made in 1973 us Mercury, the Moon , Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, En ing the long wavelength channel (A< 1400 A) of the ultra celadus, Triton, and Pluto - has become common in recent violet (UV) photometer were first reported as a null result years because of the increasing sophistication of remote (Judge et al., 1976), but subsequently reported as a detection sensing and in situ observing techniques.
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