English

ALMA Observations of Io Going into and Coming out of Eclipse

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2020-09-17 v1

Abstract

We present 1-mm observations constructed from ALMA [Atacama Large (sub)Millimeter Array] data of SO2_2, SO and KCl when Io went from sunlight into eclipse (20 March 2018), and vice versa (2 and 11 September 2018). There is clear evidence of volcanic plumes on 20 March and 2 September. The plumes distort the line profiles, causing high-velocity (\gtrsim500 m/s) wings, and red/blue-shifted shoulders in the line profiles. During eclipse ingress, the SO2_2 flux density dropped exponentially, and the atmosphere reformed in a linear fashion when re-emerging in sunlight, with a "post-eclipse brightening" after \sim10 minutes. While both the in-eclipse decrease and in-sunlight increase in SO was more gradual than for SO2_2, the fact that SO decreased at all is evidence that self-reactions at the surface are important and fast, and that in-sunlight photolysis of SO2_2 is the dominant source of SO. Disk-integrated SO2_2 in-sunlight flux densities are \sim2--3 times higher than in-eclipse, indicative of a roughly 30--50\% contribution from volcanic sources to the atmosphere. Typical column densities and temperatures are N(1.5±0.3)×1016N \approx (1.5 \pm 0.3) \times 10^{16} cm2^{-2} and T220320T \approx 220-320 K both in-sunlight and in-eclipse, while the fractional coverage of the gas is 2--3 times lower in-eclipse than in-sunlight. The low level SO2_2 emissions present during eclipse may be sourced by stealth volcanism or be evidence of a layer of non-condensible gases preventing complete collapse of the SO2_2 atmosphere. The melt in magma chambers at different volcanoes must differ in composition to explain the absence of SO and SO2_2, but simultaneous presence of KCl over Ulgen Patera.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.07729,
  title  = {ALMA Observations of Io Going into and Coming out of Eclipse},
  author = {Imke de Pater and Statia Luszcz-Cook and Patricio Rojo and Erin Redwing and Katherine de Kleer and Arielle Moullet},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.07729},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

20 pages, 15 figures. Planetary Science Journal, 2020, In Press