Abstract:

Reflectance spectroscopy plays an important role in the exploration of the Moon and planets. The payloads using the reflectance spectroscopy technology have been onboard almost all the missions except for some very few missions with  special objects. This paper firstly briefly introduces the principles of reflectance and its research domain. Then two examples describing the application of the reflectance spectroscopy are shown. The first one shows the elements, spectra, and separation of basaltic units using reflectance spectroscopy. The second example shows the mineral diversity of the Imbrium region derived from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) data. The calibration of the instruments, quantitation of minerals and the mechanism dominating and altering the absorption are the key fields deserving of study in the future. The highland exhibits a mafic character and is dominated by the noritic composition. Imbrium has both the oldest and the youngest basalts of the Moon, suggesting the geologic diversity of this area. Mafic mineralogy of the basalts is characterized by abundant olivine in the latestage Eratosthenian basalts and pigeonite to subcalcic augite in Imbrian units, suggesting Cadepletion of the Procellarum KREEP Terrane (PKT) compared to nonPKT.

Key words:  reflectance spectroscopy, Moon, M3, Imbrium