K. E. Denny, M. M. Hedman, D. Bockelée-Morvan, G. Filacchione and F. Capaccioni
{"title":"Constraining Time Variations in Enceladus’s Water-vapor Plume with Near-infrared Spectra from Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer","authors":"K. E. Denny, M. M. Hedman, D. Bockelée-Morvan, G. Filacchione and F. Capaccioni","doi":"10.3847/psj/ad4c69","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Water vapor produces a series of diagnostic emission lines in the near-infrared between 2.60 and 2.75 μm. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft detected this emission signal from Enceladus’s plume, and so VIMS observations provide information about the variability of the plume’s water-vapor content. Using a data set of 249 spectral cubes with relatively high signal-to-noise ratios, we confirmed the strength of this water-vapor emission feature corresponds to a line-of-sight column density of order 1020 molecules m−2, which is consistent with previous measurements from Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph. Comparing observations made at different times indicates that the water-vapor flux is unlikely to vary systematically with Enceladus’s orbital phase, unlike the particle flux, which does vary with orbital phase. However, variations in the column density on longer and shorter timescales cannot be ruled out and merit further investigation.","PeriodicalId":34524,"journal":{"name":"The Planetary Science Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Planetary Science Journal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3847/psj/ad4c69","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Water vapor produces a series of diagnostic emission lines in the near-infrared between 2.60 and 2.75 μm. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft detected this emission signal from Enceladus’s plume, and so VIMS observations provide information about the variability of the plume’s water-vapor content. Using a data set of 249 spectral cubes with relatively high signal-to-noise ratios, we confirmed the strength of this water-vapor emission feature corresponds to a line-of-sight column density of order 1020 molecules m−2, which is consistent with previous measurements from Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph. Comparing observations made at different times indicates that the water-vapor flux is unlikely to vary systematically with Enceladus’s orbital phase, unlike the particle flux, which does vary with orbital phase. However, variations in the column density on longer and shorter timescales cannot be ruled out and merit further investigation.