Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-Surface (REASON)

Donald D. Blankenship, Alina Moussessian, Elaine Chapin, Duncan A. Young, G. Wesley Patterson, Jeffrey J. Plaut, Adam P. Freedman, Dustin M. Schroeder, Cyril Grima, Gregor Steinbrügge, Krista M. Soderlund, Trina Ray, Thomas G. Richter, Laura Jones-Wilson, Natalie S. Wolfenbarger*, Kirk M. Scanlan, Christopher Gerekos, Kristian Chan, Ilgin Seker, Mark S. HaynesAmy C. Barr Mlinar, Lorenzo Bruzzone, Bruce A. Campbell, Lynn M. Carter, Charles Elachi, Yonggyu Gim, Alain Hérique, Hauke Hussmann, Wlodek Kofman, William S. Kurth, Marco Mastrogiuseppe, William B. McKinnon, Jeffrey M. Moore, Francis Nimmo, Carol Paty, Dirk Plettemeier, Britney E. Schmidt, Mikhail Y. Zolotov, Paul M. Schenk, Simon Collins, Harry Figueroa, Mark Fischman, Eric Tardiff, Andy Berkun, Mimi Paller, James P. Hoffman, Andy Kurum, Gregory A. Sadowy, Kevin B. Wheeler, Emmanuel Decrossas, Yasser Hussein, Curtis Jin, Frank Boldissar, Neil Chamberlain, Brenda Hernandez, Elham Maghsoudi, Jonathan Mihaly, Shana Worel, Vik Singh, Kyung Pak, Jordan Tanabe, Robert Johnson, Mohammad Ashtijou, Tafesse Alemu, Michael Burke, Brian Custodero, Michael C. Tope, David Hawkins, Kim Aaron, Gregory T. Delory, Paul S. Turin, Donald L. Kirchner, Karthik Srinivasan, Julie Xie, Brad Ortloff, Ian Tan, Tim Noh, Duane Clark, Vu Duong, Shivani Joshi, Jeng Lee, Elvis Merida, Ruzbeh Akbar, Xueyang Duan, Ines Fenni, Mauricio Sanchez-Barbetty, Chaitali Parashare, Duane C. Howard, Julie Newman, Marvin G. Cruz, Neil J. Barabas, Ahmadreza Amirahmadi, Brendon Palmer, Rohit S. Gawande, Grace Milroy, Rick Roberti, Frank E. Leader, Richard D. West, Jan Martin, Vijay Venkatesh, Virgil Adumitroaie, Christine Rains, Cuong Quach, Jordi E. Turner, Colleen M. O’Shea, Scott D. Kempf, Gregory Ng, Dillon P. Buhl, Timothy J. Urban

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

The Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) is a dual-frequency ice-penetrating radar (9 and 60 MHz) onboard the Europa Clipper mission. REASON is designed to probe Europa from exosphere to subsurface ocean, contributing the third dimension to observations of this enigmatic world. The hypotheses REASON will test are that (1) the ice shell of Europa hosts liquid water, (2) the ice shell overlies an ocean and is subject to tidal flexing, and (3) the exosphere, near-surface, ice shell, and ocean participate in material exchange essential to the habitability of this moon. REASON will investigate processes governing this material exchange by characterizing the distribution of putative non-ice material (e.g., brines, salts) in the subsurface, searching for an ice–ocean interface, characterizing the ice shell’s global structure, and constraining the amplitude of Europa’s radial tidal deformations. REASON will accomplish these science objectives using a combination of radar measurement techniques including altimetry, reflectometry, sounding, interferometry, plasma characterization, and ranging. Building on a rich heritage from Earth, the moon, and Mars, REASON will be the first ice-penetrating radar to explore the outer solar system. Because these radars are untested for the icy worlds in the outer solar system, a novel approach to measurement quality assessment was developed to represent uncertainties in key properties of Europa that affect REASON performance and ensure robustness across a range of plausible parameters suggested for the icy moon. REASON will shed light on a never-before-seen dimension of Europa and – in concert with other instruments on Europa Clipper – help to investigate whether Europa is a habitable world.

Original languageEnglish
Article number51
JournalSpace Science Reviews
Volume220
Issue number5
Number of pages91
ISSN0038-6308
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Europa
  • Europa Clipper
  • Ice shell
  • Ice-penetrating radar

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