Correlative Observations of Enceladus and Europa: Clues to Unusual Morphology and Surface Activity

Details Correlative Observations of Enceladus and Europa: Clues to Unusual Morphology and Surface Activity Correlative Observations of Enceladus and Europa: Clues to Unusual Morphology and Surface Activity

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agusm.p31a..04b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #P31A-04

Mathematics

Logic

6207 Comparative Planetology, 6218 Jovian Satellites, 6221 Europa, 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

A solar phase curve is a function expressing the brightness of a planet or satellite over the full range of illumination geometries ("phases"). The phase curves of airless bodies offer clues to important physical characteristics of their surfaces. The roughness of the surface and the nature of particles comprising the optically active upper regolith can be studied by fitting observations to radiative transfer models. Since characteristics of the surface below the resolution limit of a spacecraft camera can be studied with these models and photometrically accurate solar phase curves, unusual surface texture indicating geologic activity often exhibits itself first as a photometric clue. For the outer planets, full solar phase curves can only be obtained by deep-space missions. Two important new data sets on active icy moons were obtained and analyzed in the past year. The first data set was obtained during the New Horizons flyby of the Jovian system, and it enabled observations of the icy moon Europa at new viewing geometries. The second data set consists of a complete solar phase curve of Enceladus collected during the nearly finished four-year nominal mission of the Cassini spacecraft. A comparison of these two sets of observations shows that the solar phase curve of Europa is remarkable, exhibiting a decrease in brightness between opposition and 70 degrees that is even less than that exhibited by Enceladus. These results imply that the surface of Europa may be covered with a substance or features that tend to scatter in an isotropic fashion, such as snow or deposits from outgassing. The morphology of this material is below the resolution limit of the camera systems that have imaged its surface so far. Work funded by NASA.

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