An Overview of Ultraviolet Through Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopic Observations of Mercury During the First MESSENGER Flyby

Details An Overview of Ultraviolet Through Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopic Observations of Mercury During the First MESSENGER Flyby An Overview of Ultraviolet Through Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopic Observations of Mercury During the First MESSENGER Flyby

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agusm.u23a..06i&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #U23A-06

Physics

1027 Composition Of The Planets, 5400 Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, 5410 Composition (1060, 3672), 5464 Remote Sensing, 6235 Mercury

Scientific paper

During the first MESSENGER flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008, the Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) measured reflectance spectra from Mercury's surface over the wavelength range 220-1450 nm. These are the first high-spatial-resolution (<10 km) spectra at any wavelength and the first reported ultraviolet (UV, wavelength < 360 nm) observations of the surface. MASCS observed the sunlit surface for approximately 14 minutes after closest approach, acquiring over 650 spectra with the Visible and Infrared Spectrograph (VIRS) detectors of MASCS sensitive to wavelengths of 350-1450 nm. MASCS also obtained just under four grating scans in the middle ultraviolet (220-320 nm) using MASCS's Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer (UVVS) component. Most of the near-equatorial ground track of the observation covered terrain in the previously unseen hemisphere of Mercury but also crossed into the hemisphere viewed by Mariner 10 south of Mozart crater and in Tir Planitia. Ground-based observations of Mercury reveal a surface with a red, nearly featureless spectrum in the visible and near-infrared (wavelengths greater than ~ 500 nm) that has been interpreted as evidence for a largely iron-poor feldspathic composition. Initial analyses of VIRS spectra also show strongly red-sloped, near featureless spectra, appearing to support contentions of low iron abundance in surface materials. However, interpretation of Mercury's spectral reflectance is complicated by our lack of knowledge about the effects on its surface materials of space weathering, which both suppresses the strength of spectral absorption features and reddens the spectrum. Brightness variations and absorption bands in ultraviolet reflectance may help determine both the nature and extent of processes that modify observed reflectance at longer wavelengths. MASCS surface observation data demonstrate spectral variations across the Mercury surface that can be related to previous telescopic observations, compared and contrasted with lunar observations, and linked to possible influences of space weathering.

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