ALBERT

Description: Silicate glasses represent an important component in volcanic products, and since volcanism occurred on all terrestrial planets in the solar system, they might influence the spectral response of portions of planetary sur-faces. However, their spectral characteristics are not always considered for the interpretation of planetary surfaces and terrains, giving their blurred spectral response and the supposed lack of information they can provide. In this study, we used experimental petrology to produce glassy samples having a wide variety of chemical compositions, and we characterized them by means of reflectance and emissivity in different spectral ranges, to observe the variation of their spectral characteristics with changing chemical composition and with varying granulometric characteristics. In the Mid-Infrared range, we observed a systematic shift of spectral features, both for reflectance and emissivity spectra, that can be modelled with SiO2 and SiO2 + Al2O3 + TiO2 content, whereas the shape of the spec-tra is determined by a complex interaction of chemical and granulometric characteristics. As for the Visible and Near Infrared spectral range, we observed a correlation between the spectral slope and the iron content and speciation. Our results suggest that accounting for the spectral properties of silicate glasses, when interpreting spectral data obtained from the surface of terrestrial planets, will help in the characterization of magmatic bodies and volcanoclastic materials.Thus, we offer an open-source database of collected spectra within the Space Sci-ence Data Center (SSDC), a facility of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) which includes data processing and data archiving center (www.ssdc.asi.it).