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Towards Calibrating the Vestan Regolith: Correlating the Petrology, Chemistry and Spectroscopy of HowarditesThe Dawn spacecraft carries a visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) [1] that has acquired spectra for the wavelength range 0.25-5.0 μm at various spatial resolutions covering much of the vestan surface [2]. Through comparison of VIR spectra with laboratory spectra of howardite, eucrite and diogenite meteorites, the distribution of more diogenite-rich and more eucrite-rich terranes on Vesta have been mapped [3], but these maps are qualitative in nature. The available laboratory spectra are not well-integrated with detailed sample petrology or composition limiting their utility for lithologic mapping. Importantly, howardites are now recognized to come in two subtypes, regolithic and fragmental [4]. The former are breccias assembled in part from true regolith, while the latter have had much less exposure to the space environment. We are attempting to develop a more quantitative basis for mapping the distribution of lithologic types on Vesta through acquiring laboratory spectra on splits of howardites that have been petrologically and chemically characterized [5]. Noble gas analyses have been done on some allowing identification of those howardites that have been exposed in the true regolith of Vesta [6].
Document ID
20140000331
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Mittlefehldt, D. W. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Ammannito, E. (Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale (INAF-IAPS) Rome, Italy)
Hiroi, T. (Brown Univ. Providence, RI, United States)
De Angelis, S. (Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale (INAF-IAPS) Rome, Italy)
Di Iorio, T. (Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale (INAF-IAPS) Rome, Italy)
Pieters, C. M. (Brown Univ. Providence, RI, United States)
De Sanctis, C. (Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale (INAF-IAPS) Rome, Italy)
Date Acquired
January 22, 2014
Publication Date
July 29, 2013
Subject Category
Geophysics
Report/Patent Number
JSC-CN-28848
Meeting Information
Meeting: Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Country: Canada
Start Date: July 29, 2013
End Date: August 2, 2013
Sponsors: Meteoritical Society
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

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