Related papers: Regional study of Europa's photometry
The Hapke model has been widely used to describe the photometrical behavior of planetary surface through the Bi-directional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF), but the uncertainties about retrieved parameters has been difficult to…
We study the evolution of the Vis-NIR reflectance spectrum of salty granular ice analog samples in a simulation chamber under conditions relevant to the surface of Europa. A novel application and custom calibration of a thermopile sensor…
During its year-long orbital mission, the Dawn spacecraft has mapped the surface of main-belt asteroid Vesta multiple times at different spatial resolutions and illumination and viewing angles. The onboard Framing Camera has acquired…
During recent decades, data from space missions have provided strong evidence of deep liquid oceans underneath a thin outer icy crust on several moons of Jupiter, particularly Europa. But these observations have also raised many unanswered…
Europa, Jupiter's second Galilean moon, is believed to host a subsurface ocean in contact with a rocky mantle, where hydrothermal activity may drive the synthesis of organic molecules. Of these molecules, abiotic synthesis of aromatic amino…
Jupiter's icy moons are believed to host subsurface liquid oceans, and among them, Europa stands out as one of the most promising candidates for extraterrestrial life. Yet, the processes driving oceanic flows beneath its ice shell, as well…
A reasonable basis for future astronomical investigations of exoplanets lies in our best knowledge of the planets and satellites in the Solar System. Solar System bodies exhibit a wide variety of surface environments, even including…
An image of Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) emission from Europa obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) has previously provided the first evidence of localized water vapor (H$_2$O) aurora,…
We investigate the feasibility of detecting water molecules (H2O) and water ions (H20+) from the Europa plumes from a flyby mission. A Monte Carlo particle tracing method is used to simulate the trajectories of neutral particles under the…
The subsurface ocean of Europa is a high priority target in the search for extraterrestrial life, but direct investigations are hindered by the presence of a thick, exterior ice shell. Here we present spectral line and continuum maps of…
Europa's double ridges often display lower albedo and redder color than their surroundings. Their unique topography may cause sublimation-driven darkening due to illumination and self-heating, a process known as thermal segregation. We…
Europa's subsurface ocean is a potential candidate for life in the outer solar system. It is thought that plumes may exist which eject ocean material out into space, which may be detected by a spacecraft flyby. Previous work on the…
The primary gravity science objective of NASA's Clipper mission to Europa is to confirm the presence or absence of a global subsurface ocean beneath Europa's Icy crust. Gravity field measurements obtained with a radio science investigation…
We use the discrete "wavelet transform microscope" to show that the surface air temperature signals of weather stations selected in Europe are monofractal. This study reveals that the information obtained in this way are richer than…
A weak absorption feature at 2.07 \textmu m on Europa's trailing hemisphere has been suggested to arise from radiolytic processing of an endogenic salt, possibly sourced from the interior ocean. However, if the genesis of this feature…
Europa's leading hemisphere chaos regions have a spectral feature at 450 nm that has been attributed to absorption by crystal defects in irradiated sodium chloride, known as F-centers. Some discrepancies exist between the laboratory data of…
We present a project to map the artificial sky brightness in Europe in the main astronomical photometrical bands with a resolution better than 3 km. The aim is to understand the state of night sky pollution in Europe, to quantify the…
Europa's interior is expected to be divided into the metallic core, rocky mantle and hydrosphere based on the moment of inertia factor estimated from gravity field measurements. Specifically, the thickness of the outermost water layer is…
We present the map of the artificial sky brightness in Europe in V band with a resolution of approximately 1 km. The aim is to understand the state of night sky pollution in Europe, to quantify the present situation and to allow future…
The surface of Europa could contain the compositional imprint of a underlying interior ocean, but competing hypotheses differ over whether spectral observations from the Galileo spacecraft show the signature of ocean evaporates or simply…