Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2604b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #26.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1025
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
One of the major goals of the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO) is to understand the chemistry of Europa's inorganic and organic materials. Europa's surface material composition is controlled by the original materials forming Europa and by their differentiation and chemical alterations. Material is probably still being transported to the surface by active processes in the interior. At the surface, the material is exposed to the effects of vacuum and temperature, irradiated by solar UV, and bombarded by material entrained in Jupiter's magnetic field. The materials on the surface and their distributions are evidence of the processes operating, both endogenic and exogenic. These processes include effects of a subsurface liquid ocean and its chemistry; the mechanisms of material emplacement from below; and photolysis and radiolysis. Visible to Short Wavelength Infrared (VSWIR) spectroscopy is a well-understood technique for mapping key inorganic, organic, and volatile compositions on remote surfaces such as Europa. Key spectral absorption features have been detected in both the icy and the non-icy Europa materials and many important constituents of the surface have been identified or proposed (e.g. hydrated salts, sulfuric acid hydrate, organics, CO2, H2O2, SO2). The determination of planetary surface composition from remote infrared spectroscopy depends upon adequate signal-to-noise, spectral resolution, and spatial scale to distinguish the diagnostic spectral features of the compounds of interest. For icy satellites, laboratory reference spectra obtained at the temperatures of the target bodies are also required. We have compared diagnostic spectral features in cryogenic laboratory spectra of hydrated salts relevant to Europa in order to optimize detection of these materials under realistic mission conditions. Effects of spectral resolution, signal to noise ratio, and areal mixtures are explored to determine the impacts on detection. This work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology under contract with NASA.
Blaney Diana L.
Dalton James Bradley
Green Robert O.
Hibbits K.
McCord T.
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