Abstract:

The distribution of mineral abundances on lunar surface is one of the significant kinds of information which contains important data such as the geological formation, origin and evolution of the Moon. Although lunar mineral samples were brought back and analyzed in laboratory, remote sensing technology still plays important role in lunar study. This paper briefly introduces the bidirectional reflectance feature of olivine based on grain size. In order to distinguish the olivine’s composition, a method is proposed to simulate reflectance with the consideration of grain size. We discussed the spectral characteristics of Mgrich olivine and Ferich olivine based on the reflectance which calculated by Mie theory and Hapke’s radiative transfer model in this study. The simulated results showed that the spectral reflectance of Mgrich olivine was higher than the reflectance of Ferich olivine. Finally, the linear relationships between reflectance difference and mean size weighted by cross sectional area were analyzed. The results provide the basis of identifying the olivine using absorptive positions and depths of the olivine, which can also be applied to future remote sensing data processing.

Key words:  bidirectional reflectance, olivine, lunar, grain size