P51E-01
An Overview of the Exploration History of Europa
Twenty-four years ago, a Nature paper announced the results of study of the Voyager images of the Jovian moon Europa, in which linear fracture-like markings were projected to be evidence of liquid water and active resurfacing [Nature 301, 225 - 226 (20 January 1983)]. This paper was a post-Voyager study that pre-dated the Galileo findings by two decades. Years of modeling had gone into the effort to understand the potential thermal history of the icy moons of Jupiter. Much of the theoretical work concluded that the bodies would have been frozen solid for billions of years, but there was enough work to suggest further in situ investigation was warranted. Behind the scenes was a concerted effort to make the Galilean satellites the focus of unmanned exploration for NASA's planetary science program. The historic significance of this journey of exploration, the manner in which it unfolded, is of relevance to a whole new generation of investigators. In this talk we will present highlights of the entire period of discovery, from the commensurate orbital motions first observed by Galileo himself [1609], that would prove critical to understanding the evolution of Europa; the theoretical work on motions of the celestial bodies by Laplace [1805] that laid the ground work for understanding the resonances; Jeans [1925] speculations about the existence of the atmospheres of the Galilean satellites in his Theory of Gases; to the ground-breaking discovery by Kuiper of the spectral signature of ice on Europa ; the work by Urey [1952] making the cosmochemical arguments about the significance of water ice in the outer solar system; efforts to understand, from photometry and spectrometry, whether surface impurities were endogenic or exogenic in origin; and the work of Johnson and colleagues laying the groundwork for the understanding of the significance of sputtering in the solar system [Johnson, et al., 1982]. We will present highlights of the exploration of the Jupiter system with spacecraft in the 1970's and '80's; and close with the discoveries of the Galileo mission as they unfolded.
P51E-02
Europa's surface composition: What we know, what we would like to know, and how we can find out
Europa's icy surface contains both exogenic and endogenic material, and these materials can be modified by radiation and impact-generated processes. Determining the parent molecules and their possible origins is important for studying surface-subsurface exchange and the chemical content of Europa's putative ocean. The surface is known to contain water ice in both amorphous and crystalline form, as well as water in hydrated compounds. The identity of the hydrated molecules is not established; salts, acids, or combinations of both have been suggested. The presence of salts would indicate an endogenic source, acids can arise from both internal and external sources. Sodium and potassium atoms are observed escaping from Europa's surface, possibly originating from endogenic salts or exogenic plasma and neutral atom torii. Europa's brownish chromophore is often suggested to be sulfur, which known to be implanted in the surface by Iogenic plasma but may also be a product of salt or acid radiolysis. Molecular oxygen and hydrogen peroxide are present and are clearly radiolysis products. Sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide can arise from exogenic or endogenic sources and may be components of radiolytic sulfur and carbon cycles. Volatile molecules such as CO2 and O2 may be trapped within defects or clathrate structures. Further studies with higher sensitivity and specificity can elucidate the relative roles of exogenic and endogenic sources and allow searches for minor species, including organic molecules and potential biomarkers. Such studies can be performed using ultraviolet, visible, and near- and mid- infrared remote sensing. Observations of Europa's sputter atmosphere can be used to infer the surface composition while grains, ejected from the surface and forming Europa's dust cloud, are also potential compositional indicators.
P51E-03
Tectonics of Europa
This review of Europan tectonics previews a chapter of the forthcoming text "Europa". After the Voyager flyby of the icy moon Europa in 1979, models were developed that attributed pervasive surface fracturing to the effects of tidal forcing due to the gravitational pull of Jupiter. The late 1990s Galileo mission returned high resolution coverage of the surface, allowing a diverse range of tectonic features to be identified. Subsequent description, interpretation, and modeling of these features has resulted in significant developments in five key themes: (1) What drives the tectonics? (2) What are the formation mechanisms of the various types of tectonic features? (3) What are the implications for a subsurface ocean? (4) What is the nature and thickness of the ice shell? (5) Is Europa currently tectonically active? We highlight key developments pertaining to these fundamental issues, focusing on the following elements: (1) Many fracture patterns can be correlated with theoretical stress fields induced by diurnal tidal forcing and long-term effects of nonsynchronous rotation of the ice shell; however, these driving mechanisms alone cannot explain all fracturing. The tectonic fabric has likely been affected by additional contributing effects: tidal despinning, orbital evolution, interior differentiation, polar wander, finite obliquity, stresses due to shell thickening, endogenic forcing by convection and diapirism, and secondary effects driven by strike-slip faulting and plate flexure. (2) Due to the prevalence of global tension, a low lithostatic gradient, and the inherent weakness of ice, tectonic features likely have predominantly extensional primary formation mechanisms (e.g. surface fractures, ridges, and normal faults). There has been no categorical documentation of fracture development by compressive shearing. Even so, the constantly changing nature of the tidal stress field results in shearing reactivation of cracks being important for the morphologic and mechanical development of tectonic features. Hence, strike-slip faults are relatively common. Also, frictional shearing and heating has likely contributed to the construction of edifices along crack margins (i.e., ridges). If Europa has not recently expanded, crustal convergence (although elusive in Galileo images) is required to balance out new surface material created at spreading bands and may be accommodated locally along ridges or convergence bands. (3) Chains of concatenated curved cracks called cycloids provide convincing evidence of a subsurface ocean in that they must be the result of diurnal forcing of sufficient tidal amplitude to break the ice during a large portion of the Europan orbit, suggesting a tidally responding ocean beneath the ice shell. (4) Fracture mechanics reveals that the brittle portion of the ice shell is likely no more than a few km thick, but convection driven diapirism and crater morphologies necessitate a thicker shell overall (up to about 30 km). It is not known if fractures are able to penetrate this entire shell thickness. The brittle layer acts as a stagnant lid to plastic deformation in the ductile portion of the ice shell, resulting in localized brittle deformation. (5) Tectonic resurfacing has dominated the <70 my of visible geologic history. No evidence exists that Europa is currently tectonically active; however, this may be more a failing of the current state of the science rather than a lack of probability. A tectonically based answer to this question lies in a thorough analysis of geologically young surface fractures but would benefit from far more extensive coverage of the surface via a return mission to Europa.
P51E-04 INVITED
Radar Imaging of Europa's Subsurface Properties and Processes: The View from Earth
A primary objective of future Europa studies will be to characterize the distribution of shallow subsurface water as well as to identify any ice-ocean interface. Another objective will be to understand the formation of surface and subsurface features associated with interchange processes between any ocean and the surface. Achieving these objectives will require either direct or inferred knowledge of the position of any ice/water interfaces as well as any brine or layer pockets. We will review the hypothesized processes that control the thermal, compositional and structural (TCS) properties, and therefore the dielectric character, of the subsurface of Europa's icy shell. Our approach will be to extract the TCS properties for various subsurface processes thought to control the formation of major surface (e.g., ridges/bands, lenticulae, chaos, cratering…) and subsurface (e.g., rigid shell eutectics, diapirs, accretionary lenses …) features on Europa. We will then assess the spectrum of analog processes and TCS properties represented by Earth's cryosphere including both Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and valley glaciers. There are few complete analogs over the full TCS space but, because of the wide range of ice thickness, impurities and strain rates for Earth's cryosphere, there are many more analogs than many Earth and planetary researchers might imagine for significant portions of this space (e.g., bottom crevasses, marine ice shelf/subglacial lake accretion, surging polythermal glaciers…).Our ultimate objective is to use these Earth analog studies to define the radar imaging approach for Europa's subsurface that will be most useful for supporting/refuting the hypotheses for the formation of major surface/subsurface features as well as for "pure" exploration of Europa's icy shell and its interface with the underlying ocean.
P51E-05
Observational and Theoretical Constraints on Plume Activity at Europa
The recently-detected plume activity on Enceladus [1] has raised the question of whether Europa, too, might be active. The few Galileo images devoted to searches for plumes yielded no detections; comparisons between Voyager and Galileo images suggest that less than ~1mm of resurfacing has happened in the past 20 years over lengthscales of a few km [2]. Cassini observations of Europa's oxygen torus [3] suggest a column abundance and loss rate roughly consistent with modelled O sputtering rates [4,5]. However, the tenuous atmosphere does appear to be spatially non- uniform [6]. The observations suggest that plumes or other non-sputtering sources produce vapour at rates less than roughly 10~kg/s, or less than 10% of the Enceladus plume rate [1]. One possible source of vapour on Europa is shear heating [7,8]. For nominal Europa parameters the predicted rate of vapour production is roughly 1~kg/s per km of fault and the vapour exit velocity is ~450~m/s, much less than Europa's escape velocity. These results suggest that the bulk of the vapour will reimpact the surface after forming a plume approximately 70~km high. The resulting thermal anomaly due to vapour recondensation is ~2~K. To generate a total vapour production rate of 10~kg/s requires roughly 10~km of active faults. If there is a single plume, the local resurfacing rate is ~0.05~mm/yr, compatible with the observational resurfacing constraints [2]. Using a global lineament map [9] and assuming equi-spaced active faults, areas predicted to show most intense shear heating are two regions near the S pole (at ~90° and ~270° longitude) and one smaller patch near the N pole at ~270°. Shear heating, in addition to vapour production, may also cause elevated surface temperatures resulting in thermal segregation of ice [10]. These predictions may be compared with existing observations from Galileo, Cassini, and Earth-based telescopes [e.g. 6], and may assist in the planning of potential future spacecraft missions. [1] Porco C. et al., Science 311, 1393-1401, 2006. [2] Phillips, C.B. et al., JGR 105, 22579-22597, 2000. [3] Hansen, C.J. et al., Icarus 176, 305-315, 2005 [4] Smyth, W.H. and M.L. Marconi, Icarus 181, 510-526, 2006 [5] Shematovich, V.I. et al., Icarus 173, 480-498, 2005. [6] McGrath, M.A. et al., in Bagenal, F. et al., eds., CUP, 2004. [7] Nimmo, F., E. Gaidos, JGR 107, 5021, 2002. [8] Nimmo, F. et al., Nature 447, 289-291, 2007. [9] Crawford, Z.A., R.T. Pappalardo, LPSC XXXVII, 2264, 2006. [10] Spencer, J.R., Icarus 69, 297-313, 1987.
P51E-06
Composition and Detection of Europa's Sputter-Induced Atmosphere
Europa has an extremely tenuous atmosphere that appears to be marginally collisional, so that species ejected from the surface with sufficient energy have a high probability of escape. Such an atmosphere is often referred to as a surface boundary-layer atmosphere. That is, as at Mercury, the Moon and Ganymede, the interaction of the ambient gas with the surface determines the composition, local column density, and morphology of the atmosphere. Since gas phase species are often more readily identified both in situ and by remote sensing, Europa's atmosphere is of interest as an extension of Europa's surface. Since Europa is imbedded in the Jovian magnetosphere and is not protected from the solar EUV flux, radiolytic, photolytic and stimulated desorption processes populate the atmosphere with atoms and molecules ejected from Europa's surface. These processes are often lumped together using the words ‘sputter-produced' atmosphere. Early laboratory sputtering data by Brown, Lanzerotti and co-workers were used to predict the principal atmospheric component, O2, and its average column density. Since H2 loss accompanies the formation and ejection of O2 from ice and H2 escapes readily, the atmospheric formation process also efficiently populates the Jovian magnetosphere. In fact the extension of Europa's atmosphere as a gas torus gravitationally bound to Jupiter and only perturbed by Europa contains more of Europa's ejected surface material than the gravitationally bound atmosphere. In addition to O2, Na and K have been identified. Here we review the modeling of Europa's sputter produced atmosphere and ionosphere. Our principal interest is in the morphology of the atmosphere and the relationship between the composition and Europa's local surface composition. The possibility of detection by an orbiting spacecraft is considered as is the relevance of such detections to Europa's putative subsurface ocean.
P51E-07
Observations of Europa's Tenuous Atmosphere
Europa is one of numerous planetary satellites now known to possess tenuous atmospheres. Europa's is derived via sputtering of its icy surface by the magnetospheric plasma within which it orbits. Understanding of this tenuous atmosphere is of interest because its composition is potentially diagnostic of its subsurface ocean. Two chapters in the upcoming University of Arizona "Europa" book will provide a detailed review of both the observational foundation for, and the theoretical and modeling efforts to explain, the tenuous atmosphere of this enigmatic satellite. This paper will review the existing observational data, including observations from the Galileo and Cassini spacecrafts, and from the Hubble Space Telescope, which demonstrate that Europa's atmosphere is composed primarily of molecular oxygen that emits via electron dissociative excitation, and sustains a relatively dense ionosphere.
P51E-08
Impact Gardening on Europa
Charged-particle interactions with materials at Europa's surface can produce useful oxidants and simple organics. These oxidants and organics, if transported downward through the ice shell to a liquid water layer, could provide a significant amount of energy to sustain a biosphere. However, irradiation also destroys such materials if they remain exposed on Europa's surface. Sputtering erosion and surface mixing through impact gardening act to change the preservation depth. If sputtering dominates over gardening, then material is created and destroyed at Europa's surface much faster than it can be buried and preserved by gardening. However, if gardening dominates, this means that irradiation products can be buried beneath the surface by gardening, where they are protected from further radiation processing. We present new results on the gardening depth on Europa based on extrapolations from counts of small craters and models of regolith growth based on studies of the moon. The problem is complicated by the fact that most small craters on Europa are likely secondaries. Our new results suggest that the gardening depth on Europa is about 1 cm. This result means that sputtering likely dominates over gardening under most circumstances. CBP was supported by the NAI, and LG was supported by the NSF REU program.