Europa’s Tenuous Atmosphere and Its Interaction with Europa’s Porous Surface
نویسندگان
چکیده
During my 2006-2007 VSGC fellowship I modeled the O2 atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Europa. By assuming that atmospheric O2 can react with species contained in portions of Europa’s surface, my coauthors and I have been able to reproduce the O2 density variations seen by a previously-unexplained HST observation. This work included further refinements to a regolith model that I published previous to the fellowship. Ongoing work is focused on modeling other atmospheric constituents to analyze recent Europa observations by the New Horizons spacecraft and in preparation for a possible future Europa mission, along with continued work on the O2 model and its implications for the evolution of Europa’s surface. The talk will include a brief introduction to tenuous atmospheres throughout the solar system.
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