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Paula Cleggett-Haleim

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.


Embargoed Until
(Phone: 202/358-0883)
12:30 p.m. EDT

June 8, 1993
Diane Farrar
Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif.
(Phone: 415/604-3934)

RELEASE: 93-107

EVIDENCE FOR SOLID WATER FOUND ON JUPITER'S MOON IO

Scientists have found water molecules frozen in the surface


ices of Jupiter's moon Io.

"This is the first strong evidence of solid water on the


surface of this satellite," said Dr. Farid Salama, University of
California, Berkeley, who led the project at NASA Ames Research
Center, Mountain View, Calif.

The absorption lines for water were found in the infrared


spectrum of Io by scientists onboard NASA's Kuiper Airborne
Observatory (KAO). The KAO has a unique ability to conduct
infrared astronomy while flying above 99 percent of Earth's
atmospheric water vapor.

"We have finally seen the spectral signature of something for


which we've been looking for years -- water on Io," said Dr. Jesse
Bregman of Ames Research Center, who developed the spectrograph
used with the KAO telescope.

Io is the only body in the solar system, except Earth, known to


have intense volcanic activity. The Voyager spacecraft discovered
active volcanoes on Io more than a decade ago. Patches of sulfur
and sulfur dioxide frosts cover the satellite. The water ice is
combined with the more abundant sulfur dioxide ice on Io's
surface.

Scientists know that Io's thin atmosphere consists mainly of


gaseous sulfur dioxide, but they have been uncertain about the
main components of its surface. Their most fundamental question
concerned the basic element, hydrogen, Salama said.

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"Although most of Jupiter's satellites are covered with water


ice, we assumed that the 'hot', volcanically active moon Io had
lost all of its original water through vaporization and escape of
the gas molecules from the surface," Sandford said.

Working with Salama and Bregman in detecting the solid water


were Drs. Louis Allamandola, Scott Sandford, Fred Witteborn and
Dale Cruikshank of Ames Research Center.

Laboratory work on planetary ices done by Salama, Allamandola


and Sandford in 1988 first suggested the presence of water on Io.
Their studies were initially performed to explain weak bands in
the spectra of Io obtained at ground-based observatories by
Witteborn, Cruikshank and Bregman.

"Our lab work indicated that the weak bands were due to small
amounts of solid water mixed with the dominant frozen sulfur
dioxide.

We predicted that a stronger band could be found by telescope


observations above Earth's atmospheric water vapor," Salama said.
"The presence of water on Io raises important questions about the
source of the hydrogen," said Cruikshank, an expert in solar
system objects and among the first to identify frozen sulfur
dioxide on Io.

"We want to know whether volcanic vents release the hydrogen or


if proton bombardment produces it within the frozen sulfur dioxide
layer," he said.

"Our favored picture is that the water results from volcanic


activity on Io and that some water vapor venting occurs, leading
to a mixing with sulfur dioxide in the vent. When the hot gas
mixture expands out of the vent it condenses into ices that fall
back onto Io's cold surface," said Allamandola.

"Studying the variation of water ice on Io with time and


longitude would tell us if the water correlates with volcanic
activity. We also need to look at the finer structural details of
the new band in Io's spectrum to understand its thermal history
and water concentrations," Salama said.

NASA's planned next generation airborne observatory -- the


Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy -- would give us
the higher resolution spectra we need," Witteborn said.

The results are being presented today to the American


Astronomical Society meeting in Berkeley, Calif., and have been
submitted to the journal Icarus. This research was supported by
the Space Sciences Division at Ames and the Office of Space
Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
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