The Influence of Temperature and Photobleaching on Irradiated Sodium Chloride at Europa-like Conditions

TL;DR

This study investigates how temperature and photobleaching affect irradiated sodium chloride's spectral features under Europa-like conditions, confirming the presence of salt on Europa and explaining observed spectral discrepancies.

Contribution

It demonstrates that controlling temperature and accounting for photobleaching reconcile laboratory sodium chloride spectra with Europa observations, clarifying the origin of the 450 nm feature.

Findings

F-centers' absorption wavelength matches Europa data at 120 K

Photobleaching limits F-center density during Europa's day

F-centers grow at night and decay during daytime on Europa

Abstract

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 irradiated sodium chloride and the observations, including a $\sim$10 nm shift in central wavelength of the F-center band and the lack of the prominent 720 nm absorption on Europa from M-centers, which result from the coalescence of pairs of F-centers. Here, we perform irradiation experiments on sodium chloride in an attempt to understand these discrepancies. We show that careful control of the temperature of the sample at a temperature of 120 K yields F-centers with an absorption wavelength comparable to that of Europa. In addition, we measure the effect of photobleaching -- the destruction of F-centers by photons -- and show that at the energetic particle and photon flux on Europa, an equilibrium will be reached where only a modest F-center absorption develops. The density of F-centers never reaches high enough values for the creation of secondary M-centers. Our experiments predict that F-centers grow during the night on Europa in the absence of photobleaching and then partially decay during the daytime. We show observations from the Hubble Space Telescope consistent with this prediction. All observations of the 450 nm F-center on Europa are now consistent with laboratory measurements of sodium chloride, confirming the presence of this salt on Europa.