Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS)
Abstract NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is designed to provide a diversity of measurements to further our understanding of the potential habitability of this intriguing ocean world. The Europa mission’s Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), built at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), is primarily a “plume finder” and tenuous atmosphere investigation. The science objectives of Europa-UVS are to: 1) Search for and characterize any current activity, notably plumes; and 2) Characterize the composition and sources of volatiles to identify the signatures of non-ice materials, including organic compounds, in the atmosphere and local space environment. Europa-UVS observes photons in the 55–206 nm wavelength range at moderate spectral and spatial resolution along a 7.5° slit composed of 7.3°×0.1° and 0.2°×0.2° contiguous sections. A variety of observational techniques including nadir pushbroom imaging, disk scans, stellar and solar occultations, Jupiter transit observations, and neutral cloud/plasma torus stares are employed to perform a comprehensive study of Europa’s atmosphere, plumes, surface, and local space environment. This paper describes the Europa-UVS investigation’s science plans, instrument details, concept of operations, and data formats in the context of the Europa Clipper mission’s primary habitability assessment goals.
Authors
- Beatriz Martínez Pérez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8287-8161)
- K. D. Retherford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9470-150X)
- Jason Winkenstern (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5868-966X)
- Joe Spencer
- S. M. Brooks
- Joachim Saur (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1413-1231)
- Joshua A. Kammer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3441-3757)
- T. M. Becker
- Anne Marinan
- Amanda Hendrix (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0435-8224)
- Philippa Molyneux (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4725-4775)
- Vincent Hue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9275-0156)
- Lorenz Roth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0554-4691)
- Kristian Persson
- M. A. Freeman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4683-6004)
- Bereket Daniel Mamo
- Rohini Giles (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7665-6562)
- Oswald H. W. Siegmund (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9390-0056)
- M. A. Velez
- G. R. Gladstone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0060-072X)
- S. A. Stern (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5018-7537)
- A. J. Steffl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5358-392X)
- M. A. McGrath (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3562-6890)
- Michael W. Davis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4338-1635)
- T. K. Greathouse (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6613-5731)
- Maarten H. Versteeg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2503-9492)
- Bradley J. Trantham
- U. Raut (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6036-1575)
- Edward Gregory Nerney (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4938-5621)
- Sue A. Ferrell
- R. J. Rickerson
- Elliot R. Johnson
- S. Pope
Institutions
- Southwest Research Institute (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
- University of Cologne (DE)
- Aix-Marseille Université (FR)
- Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (FR)
- Sensor Electronics (United States) (US)
- Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (US)
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (US)
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology (SE)
- Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Space Science Reviews
- Published
- 2024-11-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-024-01121-x
- Citations
- 13
- Primary Topic
- Astro and Planetary Science
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.31
Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Aix-Marseille Université
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory