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The Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA) will perform in-situ observations of ions and magnetic fields around Phobos as part of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission to investigate the origin of the Martian moons and physical processes in the Martian environment. MSA consists of an ion energy mass spectrometer and two magnetometers which will measure velocity distribution functions and mass/charge distributions of low-energy ions and magnetic field vectors, respectively. For the MMX scientific objectives, MSA will observe solar wind ions, those scattered at the Phobos surface, water-related ions generated in the predicted Martian gas torus, secondary ions sputtered from Phobos, and escaping ions from the Martian atmosphere, while monitoring the surrounding magnetic field. MSA will be developed from previous instruments for space plasma missions such as Kaguya, Arase, and BepiColombo/Mio to contribute to the MMX scientific objectives.

The electronic structure of a natural pyrite sample from Navajun, Spain was studied using both core-level x-ray and valence band ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopies (XPS and UPS, respectively)...

Low-energy (3-25 eV) electron interactions with multilayers of 2'-deoxyadenosine 5'-monophosphate (dAMP) were probed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Understanding how electrons damage the nucleotide dAMP, which is a building block of DNA, can give insight into how the DNA undergoes radiation damage. Chemical modifications to the constituent units of the nucleotide were revealed in situ through monitoring of the O 1s, C 1s, and N 1s elemental transitions. It is shown that direct electron irradiation causes decomposition of both the base and sugar subunits, as well as cleavage of glycosidic and phosphoester bonds. Incident electrons undergo inelastic energy losses, including creation of core-excited resonances above 3-4 eV. In the condensed phase, these resonances decay via autoionization, producing electronically excited targets and

The so-called ‘PacMan’ features on the leading hemispheres of the icy Saturnian moons of Mimas, Tethys and Dione were initially identified as anomalous optical discolorations and subsequently shown to have greater thermal inertia than the surrounding regions. The shape of these regions matches calculated deposition contours of high energy plasma electrons moving opposite to the moon’s orbital direction, thus suggesting that electron interactions with the grains produce the observed anomalies. Here, descriptions of radiation-induced diffusion processes are given, and various sintering models are considered to calculate the rate of increase in the contact volume between grains in an icy regolith. Estimates of the characteristic sintering timescale, i.e. the time necessary for the thermal inertia to increase from that measured outside the anomalous regions to that within, are given for each of the moons. Since interplanetary dust particle (IDP) impact gardening and E-ring grain infall would be expected to mix the regolith and obscure the effects of high energy electrons, sintering rates are compared to rough estimates of the impact-induced resurfacing rates. Estimates of the sintering timescale determined by extrapolating laboratory measurements are below ∼0.03 Myr, while the regolith renewal timescales are larger than ∼0.1 Myr, thus indicating that irradiation by the high energy electrons should be sufficient to form stable thermal anomalies. More detailed models developed for sintering of spherical grains are able to account for the radiation-induced anomalies on Mimas and Tethys only if the regoliths on those bodies are relatively compact and composed of small (≲ 5 µm) grains or grain aggregates, and/or the grains are highly non-spherical with surface defect densities in the inter-grain contact regions that are much higher than expected for crystalline water ice grains at thermal equilibrium. These results are consistent with regolith thermal conductivity models which can only be reconciled with spacecraft observations if the contacts between grains are assumed to have much lower thermal conductance than predicted for idealized grains. The strength of the anomalies on Tethys and Dione appear to be limited by E-ring grain infall, while on Mimas IDP gardening limits the strength of the anomaly. The smaller flux of more deeply penetrating high energy (>1 MeV) electrons on Dione can account for the small thermal inertia differences measured there. Determining regolith sintering rates and the corresponding effect on thermal conductivity can, in principle, provide an independent constraint on the regolith grain geometries and exposure timescales for icy bodies.

Radiation damage and stimulated desorption of nucleotides 2'-deoxyadenosine 5'-monophosphate (dAMP), adenosine 5'-monophosphate (rAMP), 2'-deoxycytidine 5'-monophosphate (dCMP), and cytidine 5'-monophosphate (rCMP) deposited on Au have been measured using x-rays as both the probe and source of low energy secondary electrons. The fluence dependent behavior of the O-1s, C-1s, and N-1s photoelectron transitions was analyzed to obtain phosphate, sugar, and nucleobase damage cross sections. Although x-ray induced reactions in nucleotides involve both direct ionization and excitation, the observed bonding changes were likely dominated by the inelastic energy-loss channels associated with secondary electron capture and transient negative ion decay. Growth of the integrated peak area for the O-1s component at 531.3 eV, corresponding to cleavage of the C-O-P phosphodiester bond, yielded effective damage cross sections of about 23 Mb and 32 Mb (1 Mb = 10-18 cm2) for AMP and CMP molecules, respectively. The cross sections for sugar damage, as determined from the decay of the C-1s component at 286.4 eV and the glycosidic carbon at 289.0 eV, were slightly lower (about 20 Mb) and statistically similar for the r- and d- forms of the nucleotides. The C-1s component at 287.6 eV, corresponding to carbons in the nucleobase ring, showed a small initial increase and then decayed slowly, yielding a low damage cross section (∼5 Mb). Although there is no statistical difference between the sugar forms, changing the nucleobase from adenine to cytidine has a slight effect on the damage cross section, possibly due to differing electron capture and transfer probabilities.

Far more definitive information on composition is required to resolve the question of origin for the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. Current infrared spectra of the objects are inconclusive due to the lack of strong diagnostic features.Definitive compositional measurements of Phobos could be obtained using in-situ X-ray, gamma-ray, or neutronspectroscopy or collecting and returning samples to Earth for analysis. We have proposed, in lieu of those methods, toderive Phobos and Deimos compositional data from secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) measurements by calibratingthe instrument to elemental abundance measurements made for known samples in the laboratory. We describe thePhobos/Deimos Regolith Ion Sample Mission (PRISM) concept here. PRISM utilizes a high-resolution TOF plasma composition analyzer to make SIMS measurements by observing the sputtered species from various locations of the moons' surfaces. In general, the SIMS technique and ion mass spectrometers complement and expand quadrupole mass spectrometer measurements by collecting ions that have been energized to higher energies, 50-100 eV, and making measurements at very low densities and pressures. Furthermore, because the TOF technique accepts all masses all the time,it obtains continuous measurements and does not require stepping through masses. The instrument would draw less than10 W and weigh less than 5 kg. The spacecraft, nominally a radiation-hardened 12U CubeSat, would use a low-thrust SolarElectric Propulsion system to send it on a two-year journey to Mars, where it would co-orbit with Deimos and then Phobos

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. Prof. Thomas Orlando is currently a professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and an adjunct professor in the GIT School of Physics. He serves as director of the GIT Center for Space Technology and Research and as principal investigator (PI) of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute Center on Radiation Effects on Volatiles and Exploration of Asteroids and Lunar Surfaces (REVEALS). Prof. Carol Paty and Dr. Esther Beltran are deputy PIs, and Dr. Brant Jones and Prof. Stephen Robinson are science theme leaders. Orlando, Jones, Paty, and Schaible focus on understanding radiation effects on the regolith and the solar-wind formation of volatiles. Profs. Valeria La Saponara, John Reynolds, and Robinson focus on mitigating health risks by developing nanocomposites for spacesuits and habitats. Prof. Phillip First explores 2D materials for radiation detection. Collectively, the efforts will help facilitate future human exploration of near-Earth destinations.

Hydroxyl on the lunar surface revealed by remote measurements has been thought to originate from solar wind hydrogen implantation in the regolith. The hypothesis is tested here through experimental studies of the rate and mechanisms of OH bond formation due to H+ implantation of amorphous SiO2 and olivine in ultrahigh vacuum. The samples were implanted with 2–10 keV H+, in the range of solar wind energies, and the OH absorption band at ~2.8 µm measured by transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. For 2 keV protons in SiO2, the OH band depth saturated at fluences F ~5 × 1016 H+/cm2 to a maximum 0.0032 absorption band depth, corresponding to a column density ηs = 1.1 × 1016 OH/cm2. The corresponding values for 5 keV protons in olivine are >2 × 1017/cm2, 0.0067, and 4.0 × 1016 OH/cm2. The initial conversion rate of implanted H+ into hydroxyl species was found to be ~90% and decreased exponentially with fluence. There was no evidence for molecular water formation due to proton irradiation. Translating the laboratory measurements in thin plate samples to the granular lunar regolith, it is estimated that the measurements can account for a maximum of 17% relative OH absorption in reflectance spectroscopy of mature soils, consistent with spacecraft observations in the infrared of the Moon.

We have studied the photodesorption of monolayer coverage of water ice coating amorphous carbon by 193 nm photons. We found that the column density of water decreases exponentially with fluence during irradiation at 120 K and obtain a desorption cross-section of (7.4±0.5)×10–19 cm2. We estimate the lifetime for photodesorption to be ∼14 h for average solar activity at the sub-solar point on the Moon. The photodesorbed molecules, based on other experiments, are expected to be slower than the escape velocity and to be re-adsorbed on the surface, contributing to water migration. For comparison, we determine the effect of 4 keV He+ on water-coated Apollo 16 soil (65901) under similar experimental conditions. We find a sputtering cross-section of (1.2 ±0.4)×10–16 cm2. We calculate that photodesorption by solar UV is four orders of magnitude more effective than sputtering by the solar wind in causing migration of adsorbed water on the lunar surface.

International audience; We present new results for ion irradiation experiments performed on fragments of the Tagish Lake (TL) meteorite. These experiments were focused on (a) quantifying the effect of the solar wind on spectral reflectance and (b) identifying the parent bodies of TL within the Asteroid Belt and or Jupiter Trojans. In the visible and near-infrared, we observe a flattening and brightening of the reflectance with progressive irradiation; in the mid-infrared, we observe a small shift towards longer wavelengths of the main emission feature at 10 mu m consistent with what is observed in silicates, likely caused by amorphization. We evaluated possible parent bodies for Tagish Lake by comparing its total reflectance in the visible and spectral changes in the 0.4-25 mu m range with available measurements for main belt asteroids and Jupiter Trojans (asteroid data includes measurements from the WISE, SMASS and Spitzer surveys as well as IRTF observations). The low reflectance of TL compared to asteroid albedos shows that TL-like bodies are very rare among Jupiter Trojans (\textless0.02% of the total population) and that they exist in a very small proportion (\textless4.5% of the total population) among main belt asteroids, where only one asteroid, 368 Haidea, was found to match both TL's spectrum and reflectance. Additionally, TL-like bodies would be preferentially located in the outer Asteroid Belt (2.85-3.3 AU) further away from the Sun than the average current location of most Ch- and Cgh-types, these objects being the likely parent bodies of CM-type chondritic meteorites. It thus appears that the location of both meteorite groups (TL and CM) must be different, with TL having formed further away from the Sun than CMs. We find that there are by far more parent bodies of CM than TL-like meteorites, which still remains to be understood. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The large octahedral crystals of spinel can precipitate from glass during the high-level waste vitrification process and potentially block the glass discharge riser of electrically heated ceramic melters. To help predict the settling behavior of spinel in the riser, the settling of single particles and agglomerates was studied in stagnant and transparent viscosity oils at room temperature with developed optical particle-dynamics-analyzer. Determined dimensions and terminal settling velocities of particles were used for calculation of their Stokes shape factors. Calculated shape factor for the glass beads was almost identical with the theoretical shape factor of 2/9 for a perfect sphere. The shape factor for single spinel crystal was about 7.6 % higher compare to the theoretically predicted value for octahedron. Stokes shape factor of irregularly shaped multi-particle agglomerates was lower than that of the glass beads and individual spinel crystals because of the higher surface drag caused by the larger surface area to volume ratio.

The loading of high-level waste in borosilicate glasses is limited by crystallinity constraints that cannot prevent crystal accumulation on the melter bottom and in the glass discharge riser of the melter. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is studying variations in composition that are designed to constrain high-level waste glass compositions and develop the crystal-tolerant high-level waste glasses. These glasses will allow high waste loading without decreasing the lifetime of the melter by keeping the small spinel crystals suspended in the molten glass. Adding ~1 wt% of NiO to the baseline glass caused large spinel crystals to form up to 210 µm in size and resulted in the highest accumulation rate, ~ 227 mm/year, of all tested glasses. Noble metals that were added to high-Ni glass prevented large spinel crystals from forming and decreased the accumulation rate ~ 8.5 times. Adding ~5 wt% of Fe2O3 to the baseline glass resulted in a high number density of ~10-μm spinel crystals that remained suspended in the glass melt even after 17 days at 850°C. The accumulation rate of spinel crystals in high-chromia crucibles was only slightly higher compared with the accumulation rate in double crucibles. Only baseline glass exhibited about 2.6 times faster accumulationmore » rate because of increased number of bigger crystals. These crystals were the result of glass enrichment with chromium that was leached out from the walls of high-chromia crucibles.« less