Preliminary results of albedo correlation between Europa and Ganymede

Building on the work of Johnson et al (1982) on the multispectral properties of the icy Galilean satellites, Voyager images of Europa and Ganymede were analyzed to determine values for the exponent k of the Minnaert photometric function and preliminary spectra for various regions on the two satellites. The study showed that the k values for the Minnaert function for Ganymede and Europa are different and thus that the photometric behavior of the two bodies is different. This lends evidence to the idea that the physical nature of the surfaces of Ganymede and Europa are dissimilar. It should be noted that the many factors such as texture and roughness, not taken into account in the Minnaert equation, have an effect on the photometric function. Thus, while the spectra do not rule out similar materials occurring on Europa and Ganymede, they do not contribute any evidence to that possibility.