Io's Atmosphere: Support by Sublimation or Direct Volcanic Injection

Details Io's Atmosphere: Support by Sublimation or Direct Volcanic Injection Io's Atmosphere: Support by Sublimation or Direct Volcanic Injection

Oct 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011epsc.conf..292t&link_type=abstract

EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011, held 2-7 October 2011 in Nantes, France. http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011, p.292

Computer Science

Scientific paper

An outstanding mystery in the study of Io is the nature of its thin SO2 atmosphere. Since its discovery, there has been uncertainty about what supports the atmosphere. Is its abundance controlled by direct volcanic injection, or via sublimation of the considerable amount of SO2 frost on the surface? Here, we summarize recent measurements and discoveries concerning Io's atmosphere, with particular focus on the 19 μm SO2 absorption bands as seen from the TEXES instrument at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). We fit multiple blended lines to retrieve atmospheric temperature and SO2 column density from 2001 through to 2010. We show that there is a good match between long-term variations in the observed density of the atmosphere and variations in the sublimation vapor pressure equilibrium of SO2 frost over seasonal timescales, due to Io's varying heliocentric distance. This correlation indicates a possible predominance of sublimation over volcanic support of Io's atmosphere, though it appears likely that a volcanic component is required in addition, to account for the significant atmosphere remaining at aphelion.

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