Emission from Volcanic SO Gas on Io at High Spectral Resolution

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution spectral observations to analyze volcanic SO gas emissions on Io, revealing multiple temperature components and atmospheric cooling during eclipse, with implications for Io's atmospheric density and volcanic activity.

Contribution

It provides the first high-resolution spectra of Io's SO emission band, identifying multiple temperature components and constraining atmospheric density and pressure.

Findings

Detection of high and low rotational temperature gas components.

Atmospheric cooling observed during eclipse.

No correlation between SO emission strength and volcanic activity.

Abstract

Jupiter's moon Io hosts a dynamic atmosphere that is continually stripped off and replenished through frost sublimation and volcanic outgassing. We observed an emission band at 1.707 $\mu$m thought to be produced by hot SO molecules directly ejected from a volcanic vent; the observations were made the NIRSPEC instrument on the Keck II telescope while Io was in eclipse by Jupiter on three nights in 2012-2016, and included two observations with 10x higher spectral resolution than all prior observations of this band. These high-resolution spectra reveal a contribution to the SO emission from gas reservoirs at both high and low rotational temperatures. The scenario preferred by de Pater et al. (2002) for the source of the SO gas - direct volcanic emission of SO in the excited state - is consistent with these two temperature components if the local gas density is high enough that rotational energy can be lost collisionally before the excited electronic state spontaneously decays. Under this scenario, the required bulk atmospheric gas density and surface pressure are $n\sim 10^{11}$ cm$^{-3}$ and 1-3 nbar, consistent with observations and modeling of Io's dayside atmosphere at altitudes below 10 km. The low-temperature gas component is warmer for observations in the first 20 minutes of eclipse (in Dec 2015) than after Io had been in shadow for 1.5 hours (in May 2016), suggesting cooling of the atmosphere during eclipse. Excess emission is consistently observed at 1.69 $\mu$m, which cannot be matched by two-temperature gas models but can be matched by models that over-populate high rotational states. Finally, a comparison of the total band strengths observed across eight dates from 1999-2016 reveals no significant dependence on thermal hot spot activity (including Loki Patera), on the time since Io has been in shadow, nor on the phase of Io's orbit at the time of observation.