2023/02/22 by A. Raponi, Raponi, Andrea, Marco Ferrari +9
Physics and Astronomy · Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Astro and Planetary Science #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Geological and Geochemical Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2302.11685
The NASA/Dawn mission has acquired an unprecedented amount of data from the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, providing a thorough characterization of its surface composition. The current favorite compositional model includes a mixture of ultra-carbonaceous material, phyllosilicates, carbonates, organic, Fe-oxides, and volatiles, as determined by the Dawn/VIR-IR imaging spectrometer, with the constraints on the elemental composition provided by the Dawn/GRAND instrument. The recent calibration of the VIS channel of the VIR spectrometer provided further constraints on the overall compositional model, suggesting another type of silicate not previously considered. This work reviews the VIR-VIS calibration process, and the resulting compositional model of Ceres surface considering both VIS and IR channels. Laboratory experiments are needed for a better understanding of the global (VIS-IR) shape of Ceres average surface, and in particular for the interpretation of the emergent absorption at 1μm. Current and future experiments are also discussed in this work.