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Science 5 February 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5403, pp. 820 - 821
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5403.820
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Reports

A Tenuous Carbon Dioxide Atmosphere on Jupiter's Moon Callisto

Robert W. Carlson

An off-limb scan of Callisto was conducted by the Galileo near-infrared mapping spectrometer to search for a carbon dioxide atmosphere. Airglow in the carbon dioxide nu 3 band was observed up to 100 kilometers above the surface and indicates the presence of a tenuous carbon dioxide atmosphere with surface pressure of 7.5 × 10-12 bar and a temperature of about 150 kelvin, close to the surface temperature. A lifetime on the order of 4 years is suggested, based on photoionization and magnetospheric sweeping. Either the atmosphere is transient and was formed recently or some process is currently supplying carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 183-601, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. E-mail: rcarlson{at}lively.jpl.nasa.gov

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Galilean Satellites.
A. P. Showman and a. R. Malhotra (1999)
Science 286, 77-84
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