Detection of Atomic Chlorine in Io’s Atmosphere with HST/GHRS

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0404508

From: Lori M. Feaga [view email]

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:20:52 GMT   (83kb)

Authors:
Lori M. Feaga,
Melissa A. McGrath,
Paul D. Feldman,
Darrell F. Strobel

Comments: 23 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, August 1, 2004

We report the detection of atomic chlorine emissions in the atmosphere of Io
using Hubble Space Telescope observations with the Goddard High Resolution
Spectrograph (GHRS). The Cl I 1349 A dipole allowed and Cl I] 1386 A forbidden
transition multiplets are detected at a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 6 and
10, respectively, in a combined GHRS spectrum acquired from 1994 through 1996.
Oxygen and sulfur emissions are simultaneously detected with the chlorine which
allows for self-consistent abundance ratios of chlorine to these other
atmospheric species. The disk averaged ratios are: Cl/O = 0.017 +/- 0.008, Cl/S
= 0.10 +/- 0.05, and S/O = 0.18 +/- 0.08. We also derive a geometric albedo of
1.0 +/- 0.4 % for Io at 1335 A assuming an SO2 atmospheric column density of
1×10^{16} cm^{-2}.

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