Thermal Infrared Spectroscopy (7-14 micron) of Silicates under Simulated
Mercury Daytime Surface Conditions and their Detection: Supporting
MERTIS onboard the BepiColombo Mission
Abstract
To support the data analysis for the MErcury Radiometer and Thermal
Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (MERTIS) instrument on the ESA-JAXA
BepiColombo mission, we have measured the thermal infrared emissivity of
finely grained silicates (<25 μm grain size) at different
temperatures under vacuum to simulate the daytime conditions on the
surface of Mercury. The silicates were selected to represent the
mineralogy of Mercury as closely as possible (Helbert et al., 2007;
Namur and Charlier, 2017; Vander Kaaden et al., 2017). The set includes
one olivine (a Mg-rich forsterite), three pyroxenes (diopside,
enstatite, and hypersthene), five feldspars (plagioclase group;
anorthite, labradorite, andesine, oligoclase, and K-feldspar;
microcline) and a feldspathoid (nepheline). The emissivity measurements
for each mineral was carried out within the MERTIS spectral range of
7-14 μm with temperatures increasing from 100 C up to 500 C under
vacuum (~0.1 mbar). The relationships between the
spectral parameters such as the Christiansen Feature (CF) position,
first Reststrahlen band (RB1) position, RB1 emissivity, and RB spectral
contrast and temperature were investigated for all silicates. The study
shows that the RB1 position shifts to longer wavelengths, RB1 emissivity
decreases, and RB spectral contrast increases with increasing
temperatures for all silicates studied. We apply the plot of CF vs RB1
as a tool to discriminate the major silicate groups such as feldspars,
pyroxenes, and olivine, regardless of the temperatures at which they
were measured. The CF vs RB1 plot can facilitate the first order
discrimination of the mineralogy of Mercury’s surface with MERTIS.
Moreover, this approach can be more widely used to map the igneous
surface mineralogy of silicate targets such as the Moon, Mars, and
S-type asteroids in the 7-14 μm spectral region with remote sensing from
orbit and ground-based telescope observations.