Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.2301l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #23.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1152
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The nature of Io's hot spots and plumes remains mysterious in spite of extensive ground-based telescopic surveys of this moon in the 16 years since the Voyager flybys. Blaney et al. (Icarus 113:220, 1995) plotted the area and temperature dependence of ten thermal anomalies observed on Io to demonstrate that the power released is consistent with exposed silicate volcanism, using the model of Carr (JGR 91: 3521, 1986). We have reexamined the hot spot data to assess whether some of the thermal emission, particularly that corresponding to moderate temperatures, might be compatible with warm liquid sulfur. The base model for the liquid sulfur is that of Lunine and Stevenson (Icarus 64: 345, 1985), modified to account for the effect of sunlight on the thermal emission and mass transport of sulfur vapor. The sulfur is envisioned to be topographically confined into liquid pools or lakes, with recondensation of sulfur vapor from the lake contributing thermal emission at physical temperatures intermediate to that of liquid sulfur and inactive ground. Plotting the resulting temperature distribution for comparison with the Blaney et al. (1995) results yields a shallower area-temperature relationship than that of the silicate models. The strong scatter of observed hot spots in this domain makes it difficult to choose between sulfur and silicates, but for the highest temperature hot spots sulfur is probably ruled out. The data weakly suggest the possibility of mixed sulfur-silicate models, in which sulfur overlies active silicate flows that occasionally burst through to the surface. An alternative is that some or all of the hot spot activity is the result of heating of sulfur compounds intermediate in volatility to sulfur and silicates. We show model thermal emission curves for some sodium sulfides. The complex nature of the color variations across Io's surface suggest that more than just exposed silicates are responsible for thermal emission; the models presented here argue that several types of material may be involved.
Bauer J. K.
Lorenz Ralph D.
Lunine Jonathan I.
McManus S.
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