Thermal emission measurements of ordinary chondrite mineral analogs in a simulated asteroid environment: 1. Constituent mineral phases

Telescopic surveys suggest that S-type asteroids are the dominant small body type in the near-Earth object population and are among the most abundant in the inner main asteroid belt. Given the link between S-type asteroids and the ordinary chondrites, regoliths of ordinary chondrite mineralogy may represent the most common regolith type on small bodies in these populations, and therefore it is important to understand the thermal emission properties of ordinary chondrite mineral analogs radiating into asteroid-like environments. Thermal infrared spectra of particulate surfaces in airless environments are substantially modified due to near-surface thermal gradients formed between the immediate surface undergoing radiative cooling and underlying materials that are warmed by the absorption of solar radiation. To advance our understanding of how the thermal emission properties of materials relevant to ordinary chondrite composition may be modified in an airless environment, we analyze a suite of analogous single mineral phases in a simulated asteroid surface environment. A companion paper presents and discusses analyses of modal mixtures of these minerals designed to match modal abundances of ordinary chondrites as reported in the literature. We probe the thermal emission of these materials by investigating relationships between their sample temperatures, emissivity spectra, brightness temperatures, and the environmental and experimental conditions. We focus attention on the radiance spectra of the samples as derived by two data reduction methods and their corresponding brightness temperature spectra to infer the intensity of near-surface thermal gradients formed in the samples. We demonstrate that the Christiansen feature position is sensitive to the sample cup temperature with data collected in a simulated asteroid environment under constant illumination condition. Through the analysis of particulate samples of three particle size ranges (<25 μm, 25–125 μm, and 125–250 μm) at ambient and cold, vacuum conditions, we demonstrate that thermal gradients form as a result of the physical, environmental, and optical properties of the target surface. Using temperature variations observed in high spectral resolution brightness temperature spectra as a proxy for the near-surface thermal gradients, we observe relationships between the intensity of the thermal gradient and the sample particle size. Modifications of iron metal spectra due to the changing environmental conditions are examined and compared with the silicate data. Implications for the measurement of thermal infrared spectra of metal-bearing planetary materials, such as the ordinary chondrites, are discussed.