Ion- and laser-weathered spectra: How (dis)similar are they?

Introduction: Solar wind ions and impacts of micrometeoroids are the leading processes that weather the surface of airless planetary bodies in the solar system. As a result, key diagnostic features of their spectra get altered. The most prominent changes in the silicate-rich bodies in the visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths are increase in the spectral slope, reduction of the albedo, and subduction of the mineral absorption bands (see, for example, Hapke 2001).

Our work aims at understanding what are the similarities and differences between the effect of the solar wind ions and micrometeoroid impacts on the final spectra of the silicate-rich bodies. Our study is based on laboratory simulations using planetary analogue materials.

 

Methods: We have used two different terrestrial minerals, olivine and pyroxene. Each material was ground and dry-sieved to sizes smaller than 106 μm. Subsequently, we created pressed pellets from potassium bromide, which served as a base, and 100 mg of the mineral, which created the top layer of the pellet.

Ion irradiations were conducted at two different laboratories. Hydrogen irradiations proceeded at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Helsinki, using 5 keV ions with varying fluences from 10¹⁴ to 10¹⁸ ions/cm². Subsequent spectral measurements were done out of the vacuum chamber after surface passivation of the samples. Helium and argon irradiations were done using the INGMAR set-up (IAS-CSNSM, Orsay) with 20 and 40 keV ions and with fluences from 10¹⁵ to 10¹⁷ ions/cm². Spectra were measured in the vacuum chamber, where we irradiated the samples.

Individual 100-fs laser pulses were shot into a square grid on the pellets’ surface to simulate the micrometeoroid impacts (as in Fazio et al. 2018). Various densities of the pulses per cm² simulated different weathering stages. Spectral measurements were done outside of the vacuum chamber.

The spectral measurements covered, in all the set-ups, wavelengths from 0.54 to 13 μm, i.e. VIS to mid-infrared wavelengths. After the measurements, we evaluated the evolution of the spectral parameters estimated using the Modified Gaussian Model (Sunshine et al. 1990, 1999).

 

Results: Variation of the spectra in the VIS range was similar for H⁺- and laser-irradiated samples, but we have identified a difference in the NIR wavelength range. Laser irradiation caused greater changes in NIR than any of the ions we used, see Fig. 1. The reason for such difference in behaviour may be the different penetration depth of the irradiating ions and laser pulses. While laser penetrates approximately 100 μm under the surface of the pellet, our ions did not penetrate deeper than 150 nm. Spectra of the laser-irradiated samples thus bear information solely from the irradiated material, while spectra of the ion-irradiated samples are a mixture of the top-most altered layers and the unaltered underlying layers. The relative contribution of the irradiated material is then smaller in the ion case.

Otherwise, we found that the original mineralogy of the pellet is more determinative to the evolution of the spectral parameters than the space weathering agent (ions or laser pulses). While olivine and pyroxene showed albedo variations of a similar order, the evolution of pyroxene’s spectral slope was negligible when compared to olivine, see Fig. 2.

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