Cassini VIMS Observes Enceladus Opposition Effect.

Details Cassini VIMS Observes Enceladus Opposition Effect. Cassini VIMS Observes Enceladus Opposition Effect.

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.0201n&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #2.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.409

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Cassini VIMS Observes Enceladus Opposition Effect.
Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) observed the Saturnian moon Enceladus at solar phase angles 0.99<θ <3.5 degrees during the spring of 2007. The disk integrated observations permitted us to investigate the change in Enceladus' brightness as a function of phase angle near astronomical opposition. The observations covered a wavelength of 0.88-5.2 μm. Water ice, the principal absorbing species comprising Enceladus' surface, has strong absorption features in this wavelength range. Thus it was possible to study Enceladus' phase curve at wavelengths where water ice is reflecting, and multiply scattered photons are strongly dominate the returned signal, and at wavelengths where it is strongly absorbing, where singly scattered photons dominate the light returned from the surface.
We find that at wavelengths of 1.5,2.0 and 3.0 μm, where water ice is absorbing, the slope of the phase curve is considerably less than at wavelengths of 1.0,1.35, 1.72 and 2.21 μm, where water ice is highly reflecting. The comparative relative intensity surge at true opposition, zero degrees, is much higher for wavelengths where water ice is highly reflecting compared than at wavelengths where water it is highly absorbing. This is consistent with coherent constructive interference processes occurring on the surface at wavelengths where water ice is reflective. Our results at spectral bands where the surface is reflecting compare favorably with HST observations at shorter wavelengths
where Enecladus is also highly reflecting. (Verbischer et al, Icarus, 173, 66-83, 2005)

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