Photometric Analysis of Mercury's Surface from MESSENGER observations: Implications for Global Color Properties

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The importance of correcting spectral observations to common photometric conditions prior to detailed compositional analyses, such as mixture modeling or comparison with analog materials, is evidenced in laboratory analyses of mineral and lunar samples. Our analysis of the photometric measurements acquired by MESSENGER's wide-angle multispectral imager from all three flybys of Mercury provide both a method for correcting the global spectral image data set to a common set of photometric conditions and a description of Mercury's regolith properties as compared to those of other airless rocky bodies. The photometric and spectral properties of Mercury as determined from the MESSENGER observations are commensurate with corresponding Earth-based observations. Modeling of the phase curves using Hapke's equations indicates that Mercury's regolith is smoother (an average surface tilt over size scales ranging from a few millimeters to kilometers) than the regoliths of the Moon and several asteroids, and exhibits a higher opposition amplitude yet with similar particle scattering properties. The results from the photometric analyses also provide measures of the geometric and Bond albedo over the wavelength range 430 nm to 1010 nm. In addition, a bolometric albedo of 0.081 is derived for this wavelength range. Our photometric modeling results provide corrections that make visible improvements to the global color map of Mercury's surface, thus enabling the comparison of broadband spectral properties across Mercury's surface.
This work was supported by the MESSENGER Project under NASA's Discovery Program.

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