Abstract
The last decades have seen a large number of missions targeting small bodies in the solar system. NASA, ESA and JAXA sent missions to different solar system small bodies (SSSB), and the Japan mission Hayabusa returned samples from the surface of the S-type asteroid Itokawa. JAXA launched in 2014 a follow-up mission (Hayabusa2) to collect a sample from carbonaceous (C-type) asteroid 1999 JU3 asteroid and bring it back to Earth. The NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will launch in September 2016 to explore the carbonaceous asteroid Bennu. Despite an already existing rich collection of reflectance and emissivity spectral libraries for asteroid analogues, those are mostly based on measurements in air for a spectral range covering the visible to the medium infrared (approximately, from 0.4 to 25 µm). To characterize minerals, rocks and meteorites suitable for being surface analogues for asteroids and SSSB in general, spectroscopic measurements are needed for a wider spectral range and in vacuum, conditions that more closely resemble those found on asteroid surfaces. To fill this gap we acquired spectral measurements over a large spectral range (1–100 µm) for several meteorites and other analogues at the Planetary Emissivity Laboratory of the German Aerospace Center in Berlin. Those data provide more direct analogues for asteroid surfaces and expand our existing database of emissivity and reflectance measurements.
Highlights
Solar system small bodies (SSSB) are remnants of the process that led to the formation of the solar system from the solar nebula
In the left panel we show emissivity measured in vacuum and under purging and 1-reflectance measured under vacuum in the NIR and medium infrared (MIR) spectral range (1–16 μm)
In a recent paper we show that bi-conical reflectance spectra of samples measured at Planetary Emissivity Laboratory (PEL) under purging or under vacuum conditions are identical (Maturilli et al 2015), but the measurements under vacuum are preferable because they are free of atmospheric spectral features
Summary
Solar system small bodies (SSSB) are remnants of the process that led to the formation of the solar system from the solar nebula. Information on their composition and physical properties is a key to understand the formation and evolution of our solar system. Asteroids and comets may contain the molecular precursors (organic molecules such as amino acids) to the origin of life on Earth and could possibly be the source of water that formed the Earth’s oceans. The near-infrared (NIR) region from 1 to 5 μm contains primarily information on overtones and combinations for phyllosilicates, most sorosilicates, hydroxides, some sulfates, amphiboles, carbonates, soil water and organic matter; the thermal-infrared (TIR) region from 5 to 100 μm contains mostly information on Si–O lattice vibrations for silicates (quartz, feldspars, clay), other than mafic, carbonate mineral group and organic compounds (Chabrillat et al 2013).
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