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Published February 20, 2013 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

A Search for Magnesium in Europa's Atmosphere

Abstract

Europa's tenuous atmosphere results from sputtering of the surface. The trace element composition of its atmosphere is therefore related to the composition of Europa's surface. Magnesium salts are often invoked to explain Galileo Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer spectra of Europa's surface, thus magnesium may be present in Europa's atmosphere. We have searched for magnesium emission in the Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph archival spectra of Europa's atmosphere. Magnesium was not detected and we calculate an upper limit on the magnesium column abundance. This upper limit indicates that either Europa's surface is depleted in magnesium relative to sodium and potassium, or magnesium is not sputtered as efficiently resulting in a relative depletion in its atmosphere.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2013 January 14; accepted 2013 January 26; published 2013 February 7. This work was initially supported by a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the California Institute of Technology funded by a trust established by J. Edward Richter. S.M.H. is supported by NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship AST-1102827.

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Published - 2041-8205_764_2_L28.pdf

Submitted - 1301.6292.pdf

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