Maps of the Opposition Surge, Phase Coefficient and Albedo for the Galilean Satellites from HST Images

Details Maps of the Opposition Surge, Phase Coefficient and Albedo for the Galilean Satellites from HST Images Maps of the Opposition Surge, Phase Coefficient and Albedo for the Galilean Satellites from HST Images

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.5905g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #59.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.506

Mathematics

Metric Geometry

Scientific paper

We use HST WFPC2 F547M images of the Galilean satellites to map the spatial variation of the opposition surge amplitude, intrinsic phase coefficient, and albedo on Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. For each satellite, the data set consists of images sampling 4 orbital longitudes at 3 different phase angles: g < 1.25 degrees, 3.7 < g < 6.7 degrees, and 9.6 < g < 11.0 degrees. Because these images are from an earth-based photometric geometry and V-filter wavelength but have spatial resolution of 140 km/pixel, they are the "missing link" between historical earth-based photometry, limited to hemispheric spatial resolution, and Voyager and Galileo images with phenomenal spatial resolution, but typically acquired during flybys when the photometric geometry is rapidly changing and g > 12 degrees. Our goal is to quantify the variations of the opposition surge amplitude, intrinsic phase coefficient, and albedo among the known surface features and to identify regions characterized by differences in these photometric properties, but may otherwise not have been previously recognized. For example, it has long been known that the leading and trailing hemispheres of Callisto have quite different phase angle variation for g < 6 degrees. Our photometric parameter maps show a large region of very small opposition surge amplitude extending from 260 W Longitude to beyond 290 W Longitude (perhaps as far as 320 W) and from at least 30 N to 30 S latitude that is undoubtedly responsible for the previously recognized hemispheric difference, but which seems unremarkable otherwise. This talk will focus on the variation of these 3 photometric parameters among surface features on the satellites and their plausible interpretations.
This research was supported in part by grants from HST and NASA Outer Planets Research program and carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

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