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

Mercury's Weather-Beaten Surface: An Examination of the Relevant Processes Through Comparisons and Contrasts with the Moon and Asteroids

We examine global color properties of Mercury and their correlations to the predicted trends due to particle bombardment and thermal processing. Color ratio and spectral slope analyzes are interpreted relative to lunar and asteroid studies

Studying Io's Volcanic History Using Thermal Infrared Measurements

A new thermal infrared instrumentation to observe Io combined with the unique capabilities of PEL will provide new insights into the evolution of Io

Transmittance, Reflectance and Emission Spectroscopy of Meteorites from the IV to the IR Spectral Range

In the last decade the Planetary Emissivity Laboratory (PEL) of DLR in Berlin has provided spec-tral measurements of planetary analogues from the visible to the far-infrared range for comparison with remote sens-ing spacecraft/telescopic measurements of planetary surfaces [1-5]. Bi-directional reflection, transmission and emis-sion spectroscopy are the techniques we used to acquire spectral data of target materials. In fall 2015 we started upgrading our laboratory set-up, adding a new spectrometer, three external sources, and new detectors and beamsplitters to further extend the spectral range of measurements that can be performed in the laboratory. Reflecting the wider scope of measurement capabilities the facility was renamed to Planetary Spectros-copy Laboratory (PSL). Two FTIR instruments are operating at PSL, in an air-conditioned room. The spectrometers are two Bruker Ver-tex 80V that can be evacuated to ~.1 mbar. One spectrometer is equipped with aluminum mirrors optimized for the UV, visible and near-IR, the second features gold-coated mirrors for the near to far IR spectral range. Apart from the mirrors the two instruments are identical, and can therefore share the collection of detectors and beamsplitters we have in our equipment to cover a very wide spectral range. The instruments and the accessory units used are fully automatized and the data calibration and reduction are made with software developed at DLR[4]. By using several pairings of detector+beamsplitter we can perform spectral measurements in the whole spectral range from 0.2 to 200 μm

MERTIS on BepiColombo Cruise Operations: Flybys to the Moon and Venus

BepiColombo spacecraft is performing 9 flybys: among them, the Earth/Moon flyby on April 10, 2020, and the Venus flyby on October 15, 2020 (second Venus flyby around August 10, 2021). Among the few instruments that can operate is MERTIS