Thermal properties of the leading hemisphere of Callisto inferred from ALMA observations

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA observations to analyze Callisto's thermal properties, revealing complex surface thermal inertia variations and identifying thermally anomalous regions with implications for surface composition and history.

Contribution

First application of high-resolution ALMA thermal observations combined with thermophysical modeling to characterize Callisto's surface properties.

Findings

Models with two thermal inertia components fit data better than single-component models.

Identified thermally anomalous regions associated with impact basins and craters.

Detected a warm mid-latitude region suggesting regolith property changes.

Abstract

We present a thermal observation of Callisto's leading hemisphere obtained using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at 0.87 mm (343 GHz). The angular resolution achieved for this observation was $\sim$$0.16^{\prime\prime}$, which for Callisto at the time of this observation ($D\sim 1.05^{\prime\prime}$) was equivalent to $\sim$6 elements across the surface. Our disk-integrated brightness temperature of 116 $\pm$ 5 K (8.03 $\pm$ 0.40 Jy) is consistent with prior disk-integrated observations. Global surface properties were derived from the observation using a thermophysical model (de Kleer et al. 2021) constrained by spacecraft data. We find that models parameterized by two thermal inertia components more accurately fit the data than single thermal inertia models. Our best-fit global parameters adopt a lower thermal inertia of 15-50 $\text{J}\:\text{m}^{-2}\:\text{K}^{-1}\:\text{s}^{-1/2}$ and a higher thermal inertia component of 1200-2000 $\text{J}\:\text{m}^{-2}\:\text{K}^{-1}\:\text{s}^{-1/2}$, with retrieved millimeter emissivities of 0.89-0.91. We identify several thermally anomalous regions, including spots $\sim$3 K colder than model predictions co-located with the Valhalla impact basin and a complex of craters in the southern hemisphere; this indicates the presence of materials possessing either a higher thermal inertia or a lower emissivity. A warm region confined to the mid-latitudes in these leading hemisphere data may be indicative of regolith property changes due to exogenic sculpting.