Integrated ray tracing simulation of spectral bio-signatures from full 3D earth model

Accurate identification and understanding of spectral bio-signatures from possible extra terrestrial planets have received an ever increasing attention from both astronomy and space science communities in recent years. In pursuance of this subject, one of the most important scientific breakthroughs would be to obtain the detailed understanding on spectral biosignatures of the Earth, as it serves as a reference datum for accurate interpretation of collapsed (in temporal and spatial domains) information from the spectral measurement using TPF instruments. We report a new Integrated Ray Tracing (IRT) model capable of computing various spectral bio-signatures as they are observed from the Earth surface. The model includes the Sun, the full 3-D Earth, and an optical instrument, all combined into single ray tracing environment in real scale. In particular, the full 3-D Earth surface is constructed from high resolution coastal line data and defined with realistic reflectance and BSDF characteristics depending on wavelength, vegetation types and their distributions. We first examined the model validity by confirming the imaging and radiometric performance of the AmonRa visible channel camera, simulating the Earth observation from the L1 halo orbit. We then computed disk averaged spectra, light curves and NDVI indexes, leading to the construction of the observed disk averaged spectra at the AmonRa instrument detector plane. The model, computational procedure and the simulation results are presented. The future plan for the detailed spectral signature simulation runs for various input conditions including seasonal vegetation changes and variable cloud covers is discussed.