The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by

Details The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p54b..01c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P54B-01

Computer Science

Performance

6008 Composition (1060), 6055 Surfaces, 6094 Instruments And Techniques, 6099 General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

On the September 5th 2008, VIRTIS, on board of the Rosetta Spacecraft, collected VIS-NIR hyperspectral images of the surface of the E-type asteroid 2867 Steins. Steins is Rosetta's first nominal scientific target in its 11½ year mission to ultimately explore the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. VIRTIS is high performance instrument that allows to combine the imaging and the spectrometry in the Vis and IR, through a slit spectrometer, named VIRTIS-M ( M is for "mapper") ; the high resolution channel, is devoted to high resolution spectroscopy in the IR and is named VIRTIS-H. VIRTIS-M (Visible InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) is a VIS-NIR mapper channel operating in the 0.25-5 micron range, with spatial resolution of 250 microrad (IFOV) and Field of View (FOV) of 3.6° x3.6°. Steins was observed in two consecutive phases: when the distance from the asteroid was between 223000 km and 20700 km , the spectrophotometric lightcurve was acquired, while from 2800 km to 1100 km, passing through the closest approach, high spatial resolution hyperspectral images were obtained. During these observations, the solar phase angle changed, passing through the opposition effect. Despite the intrinsic difficulties for an imaging spectrometer to operate during a fast (8.6 km/s) and close (800km) flyby, VIRTIS-M was able to acquire high signal/noise hyperspectral data of different regions of Steins. Each pixel of the VIRTIS-M spectrometer consists of 864 spectral bands, allowing to measure surface reflectance with a spectral resolution of about 2 nm in the VIS and 10 nm in the IR. The spatial resolution on the asteroid surface is of the order of 300 m/pix. Using this data set we will investigate the spectral behavior of the asteroid's surface , which appear to have a red slope in the visible range. The high spectral resolution joined with the spatial information allow to map the distribution of different compositional units on the surface. The last bands of the infrared channel will allow to characterize the thermal behavior of the asteroid. Moreover, the variability of the solar phase angle during the fly by, will help to understand the surface regolith properties by analyzing the opposition effect.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The VIRTIS observations of 2867 Steins during the Rosetta fly-by will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1239496