Physics
Scientific paper
Jul 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993hst..prop.4268n&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #4268
Physics
Hst Proposal Id #4268
Scientific paper
Like most outer solar system satellites, the albedo of Europa drops in the UV below the albedo expected for an icy surface. Furthermore, the longitudinally averaged albedo near the antapex of Europa's orbital motion is more than a factor of two lower than the albedo near the apex. Because the surface of Europa resides in an environment filled with an energetic ion plasma consisting mainly of S and O ions, it is natural to expect that ion-surface interactions could play an important role in the darkening observed in the UV. This hypothesis seems to be further strengthened by the observation of a weak differential absorption seen in the ratio of the trailing hemisphere spectrum to the leading hemisphere spectrum that is consistent with S-O bands from isolated S ions in an ice matrix. However, the most direct test of this model, imaging at wavelengths most sensitive to sulfur impurities in ice, has never been done. We propose to obtain spatially resolved images of Europa using the Faint Object Camera with a spatial resolution of 200 km in order to directly address the question of plasma interactions with the surface and the balance of endogenic resurfacing and exogenic surface alteration on Europa.
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