Water‐Ice Dominated Spectra of Saturn's Rings and Small Moons From JWST

Abstract

JWST measured the infrared spectra of Saturn's rings and several of its small moons (Epimetheus, Pandora, Telesto, and Pallene) as part of Guaranteed Time Observation program 1247. The NIRSpec instrument obtained near‐infrared spectra of the small moons between 0.6 and 5.3 microns, which are all dominated by water‐ice absorption bands. The shapes of the water‐ice bands for these moons suggests that their surfaces contain variable mixes of crystalline and amorphous ice or variable amounts of contaminants and/or sub‐micron ice grains. The near‐infrared spectrum of Saturn's A ring has exceptionally high signal‐to‐noise between 2.7 and 5 microns and is dominated by features due to highly crystalline water ice. The ring spectrum also confirms that the rings possess a 2%–3% deep absorption at 4.13 microns due to deuterated water ice previously seen by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft. This spectrum also constrains the fundamental absorption bands of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and may contain evidence for a weak aliphatic hydrocarbon band. Meanwhile, the MIRI instrument obtained mid‐infrared spectra of the rings between 4.9 and 27.9 microns, where the observed signal is a combination of reflected sunlight and thermal emission. This region shows a strong reflectance peak centered around 9.3 microns that can be attributed to crystalline water ice. Since both the near and mid‐infrared spectra are dominated by highly crystalline water ice, they should provide a useful baseline for interpreting the spectra of other objects in the outer solar system with more complex compositions.

JWST Spectrophotometry of the Small Satellites of Uranus and Neptune

“…Additionally, Neptune Trojans with "very red" visible spectral slopes, such as 2013 VX30, do not exhibit the 3.0-4.6 μm upturn that Proteus and Puck do (see Figure1ofMarkwardt et al 2023).The Saturnian satellites also offer an important comparison point for our spectrophotometry. Many of the Saturnian satellites have high albedos (Enceladus, Tethys, Iapetus trailing) that are very distinct from the set of Uranian and Neptunian satellites observed, but the darker Phoebe or the leading side of Iapetus are a better point of comparison (see Figure2ofFilacchione et al 2012 and also data fromClark et al 2012;Hedman et al 2024). We show data from Cassini VIMS on the Saturnian system fromClark et al (2019) in Figure5.…”