All you can measure at the Planetary Emissivity Laboratory (PEL) at DLR, in Berlin

The Institute for Planetary Research has an expertise in spectroscopy of minerals, rocks, meteorites, and organic matter, build up in more than two decades. The available equipment allows spectroscopy from the visible to TIR range using bi-conical reflection, transmission and emission spectroscopy. The institute has an outstanding heritage in designing and building infrared remote-sensing instruments for planetary missions. The PEL has been operating in various configurations for the last 10 years. The laboratory experimental facilities consist of the main emissivity spectrometer laboratory, a supporting spectrometer laboratory for reflectance and transmission measurements, sample preparation facilities and an extensive collection of rocks and minerals

Laboratory studies of thermal space weathering on airless bodies

Deriving the surface composition of Mercury from remote sensing hyper spectral data is a challenging task. Mercury’s surface has a low iron abundance, which complicates the application of “traditional” space weathering approach. In addition the high temperatures on Mercury lead to previously unseen changes in the spectral characteristics, which we call “thermal space weathering”. The Planetary Emissivity Laboratory (PEL) at DLR in Berlin was setup specifically to study the effects of high temperatures on the spectral characteristics of planetary analog materials. It allows characterizing “thermal space weathering” and adds temperature as another important factor for the creation of spectral libraries. Thermal space weathering can produce reversible as well as irreversible changes in the spectral characteristics of materials. In comparison to “traditional space weathering” it acts on much shorter timescales. We are going to present a number of examples for thermal space weathering effects in the visible as well as infrared spectral range

Probing Rock Type, Fe Redox State, and Transition Metal Contents with Six-Window VNIR Spectroscopy Under Venus Conditions

VEM-window data are shown to distinguish among key rock types on Venus, and evaluate redox state and transition metal contents of Venus surface rocks

Detection of Crystalline and Fine-grained Calcic Plagioclases on Vesta

Accepted: 2019-06-2

Ceres – VIS-IR Surface Composition Analysis: A Review In Advance Of The DAWN Mission

Ceres has been heavily investigated during the last years prior to the DAWN mission. Although it is the largest object in the Main Asteroid Belt, its properties, especially the surface composition, are not well understood. Studies of Ceres surface composition and texture are of particular importance to generally analyze the interior and evolution of Solar System objects as well as the surface processes that are/were active on those bodies. VIS-IR spectroscopy is an effective method to detect characteristic absorption bands in the spectra of surface materials which can be related to the surface composition of planets and asteroids. The primary aim of this work is to review the previous visible and infrared earth-based observations and the supporting laboratory work that have been done so far to get an overview on the possible surface composition of Ceres prior to DAWN’s arrival. These data will be compared with complementary spectral measurements in the wavelength range of the VIR instrument onboard the DAWN spacecraft between 0.5 to 5 µm. Measured analogue materials include meteorites (CM, CO, and CV chondrites) and minerals (brucite, cronstedtite, tochilinite, buddingtonite). Additional spectra were collected from databases like Relab to increase the range of data. These data include spectra of meteorites, especially CM, CO, CV and CI chondrites, and of terrestrial analogue materials, e.g. montmorillonite, carbonates, water ice and frost, pyrite, magnesite. Diagnostic spectral characteristics, like the wavelength of slope change, the spectral slopes in the VIS and NIR, and absorption bands, have been defined and analyzed in the available spectra. They are a useful tool to identify Ceres’ surface materials and to draw implications for the DAWN composition analysis