Spectral Decomposition Reveals Surface Processes on Europa

Competing processes shape Europa’s surface: geological activity replenishes material through resurfacing, while bombardment by charged particles alters surface chemical composition. Each process leaves distinct spectral signatures.

We present a novel data-driven analysis of JWST NIRSpec-IFU observations of Europa’s leading hemisphere across three observing geometries, targeting nine spectral bands sensitive to water ice, radiolytic products, and volatiles.

Through spectral factorization, we isolate the dominant components of spectral variability and reconstruct their spatial distributions.

We find that CO₂ enrichment extends beyond Tara Regio, and covers multiple chaos units in a lens-like pattern. These CO₂-enriched areas co-occur with anomalous ice-texture signatures.

Together, these findings suggest that enrichment in volatiles on Europa may reflect retention-favorable near-surface microphysics as well as emplacement, refining how they are interpreted in the context of surface–interior exchange. This has implications for interpreting the sources and supply rates of extant carbon-bearing species and, ultimately, for assessing Europa’s habitability.

Gideon Yoffe, Sahar Shahaf

Comments: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Applications (stat.AP)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.10520 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2603.10520v2 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.10520
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Submission history
From: Gideon Yoffe
[v1] Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:26:24 UTC (37,488 KB)
[v2] Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:55:15 UTC (37,488 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.10520
Astrobiology