Excess thermal energy within a Charged Coupled Device (CCD) results in excess electrical current that is trapped within the lattice structure of the electronics. This excess signal from the CCD itself can be present through multiple exposures, which will have an adverse effect on its science performance unless it is corrected for. The traditional way to correct for this extra charge is to take occasional long-exposure images with the camera shutter closed. These images, generally referred to as “dark” images, allow for the measurement of thermal-electron contamination at each pixel of the CCD. This so-called “dark current” can then be subtracted from the science images by re-scaling to the science exposure times. Pixels that have signal above a certain value are traditionally marked as “hot” and flagged in the data quality array. Many users will discard these pixels as being bad. However, these pixels may not be bad in the sense that they cannot be reliably dark-subtracted; if these pixels are shown to be stable over a given anneal period, the charge can be properly subtracted and the extra Poisson noise from this dark current can be taken into account and put into the error arrays.

Europa is a prime target for astrobiology and has been prioritized as the next target for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration flagship mission. It is important, therefore, that we advance our understanding of Europa, its ocean and physical environment as much as possible. Here, we describe observations of Europa obtained during its orbital eclipse by Jupiter using the Hubble Space Telescope. We obtained Advanced Camera for Surveys Solar Blind Channel far ultraviolet low-resolution spectra that show oxygen line emission both in and out of eclipse. We also used the Wide-Field and Planetary Camera-2 and searched for broad-band optical emission from fluorescence of the surface material, arising from the very high level of incident energetic particle radiation on ices and potentially organic substances. The high-energy particle radiation at the surface of Europa is extremely intense and is responsible for the production of a tenuous oxygen atmosphere and associated FUV line emission. Approximately 50% of the oxygen emission lasts at least a few hours into the eclipse. We discuss the detection limits of the optical emission, which allow us to estimate the fraction of incident energy reradiated at optical wavelengths, through electron-excited emission, Cherenkov radiation in the ice and fluorescent processes.