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Published January 2019 | Published
Journal Article Open

Europa's Optical Aurora: Update from Four New Hubble Eclipse Observations

Abstract

Atomic emissions from the tenuous atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Europa provide information on the composition, column density, and variability of gas species, which inform our understanding of the atmosphere's origins. The strength and ratios of the UV and optical oxygen emission lines indicate that Europa's atmosphere is composed primarily of O_2 and has a column density of ~1–15 × 10^(14) cm^(−2) (Hall et al. 1998; Roth et al. 2014, 2016; de Kleer & Brown 2018). The auroral emissions show variability on timescales from minutes to days, some of which can be attributed to Europa's position relative to Jupiter's plasma sheet (Roth et al. 2016; de Kleer & Brown 2018). The atmosphere is sourced from Europa's surface, from which material is liberated via sputtering and/or thermal processes (Johnson 1990; Oza et al. 2018).

Additional Information

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2019 January 27. Accepted 2019 January 28. Published 2019 January 31. Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number HST-GO-15425.002-A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. This work was based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the data archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute. K. de Kleer is supported by a Heising-Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellowship.

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Created:
September 29, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023