Monitoring Io volcanic activity using the Keck AO system: 2-5μm sunlit and eclipse observations

Details Monitoring Io volcanic activity using the Keck AO system: 2-5μm sunlit and eclipse observations Monitoring Io volcanic activity using the Keck AO system: 2-5μm sunlit and eclipse observations

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufm.p71b0460m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #P71B-0460

Physics

Optics

1729 Planetology, 5464 Remote Sensing, 5480 Volcanism (8450), 5494 Instruments And Techniques, 6218 Jovian Satellites

Scientific paper

Galileo provided us with spectacular images of the volcanically active Io moon over the last 7 years, but we understand little about the physical processes occurring on this moon. Groundbased monitoring programs help characterize the long time evolution of Io's volcanic activity, such as the frequency, spatial distribution and temperature of hot spots and outbursts. Our group started a monitoring program of Io's volcanic activity using the Keck II Adaptive Optics (AO) system and its recently installed near-infrared camera NIRC2. Here we report groundbased observations of Io conducted in December 2001 (UT), at 0.05" resolution (120-140 km on Io) in K', i.e., ~4 times better than HST and than global Galileo NIMS images. Our 1-5 micron data enable us to determine the temperature of individual hot spots, a key parameter for geophysical/volcanic flow models. We will present: i) Io in reflected sunlight in K', L', and M bands. We used Io itself as reference source for the wavefront sensor of the AO system. Our L and M-band images show both reflected sunlight and thermal emission from volcanic hot spots. The contrast of images is enhanced using the MISTRAL deconvolution algorithme. The 12 images taken on 10 days provides a complete survey of Io surface during one full rotation. 26 active hot spots were detected on the entire surface in L band (3.8μm), approximatively three times more in M band (4.7μm). One active hot spot is seen in K band (2.2μm) in the Pele area. A study of individual hot spot (temperature, emission area, nature) will be presented. ii) Io in eclipse. While Io is in Jupiter's shadow, it is invisible to the wavefront sensor, but its hot spots are easily visible in the near-infrared. We imaged Io during the 18 Dec. 2001 eclipse using Ganymede (30" from Io, moving relative to Io at ~0.5"/min) as a reference source. A dozen of faint hot spots are detected at both K' and L', allowing temperature estimates for each of them. Keck Science team is composed of S. Kwok, P. Amico, R. Campbell, F. Chaffee, A. Conrad, A. Contos, B. Goodrich, G. Hill, D. Sprayberry, P. Stomski, P. Wizinowich (W.M. Keck Observatory). This work has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center for Adaptive Optics, managed by the University of California at Santa Cruz under cooperative agreement No. AST-9876783 and the France-Berkeley Fund.

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