Geoscience Reference
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understand the surface release processes and the source/sink balance of the
exosphere. Together these measurements will help explaining the cycling of
volatile elements between Mercury's interior, surface and exosphere, and
the contribution of meteoritic/cometary material and solar wind plasma to
Mercury's near-surface volatile budget.
2.4. Description of the MPO payload instruments
In this section a description of the scientific goals of each of the payload
elements is given.
2.4.1. Spectrometer and imagers for MPO BepiColombo integrated
observatory system
Spectrometer and images for MPO BepiColombo integrated observatory
system (SIMBIO-SYS) is an integrated package for the imaging and spectro-
scopic investigation of the surface of Mercury. The science goals of SIMBIO-
SYS are to examine the surface geology (stratigraphy, geomorphology),
volcanism (lava plain emplacement, volcanoes identification), global tec-
tonics (structural geology, mechanical properties of lithosphere), surface
age (crater population and morphometry, degradation processes), surface
composition (maturity and crustal differentiation, weathering, rock form-
ing minerals abundance determination), and geophysics (libration measure-
ments, internal planet dynamics) of Mercury. It incorporates capabilities
to perform medium space resolution global mapping in stereo and color
imaging using two pan-chromatic and three broad-band filters, respec-
tively, as well as high space resolution imaging in a pan-chromatic and
three broad-band filters and imaging spectroscopy in the spectral range
400-2,000 nm.
It consist of (1) the stereo channel (STC), which will provide the global
color coverage of the surface in full stereo at 50 m/pixel resolution with
the aim of defining the main geological units, large scale tectonic features,
impact crater population and, if present, volcanic edifices, (2) the high
spatial resolution imaging channel (HRIC), which objective is the charac-
terization of special surface targets with high-resolution images at ground
pixel sizes of about 5 m/pixel from altitude 400 km in four different bands,
and (3) the visible infrared hyperspectral imager channel (VIHI), which is
a hyper spectral imager in the visible and near-infrared range that will map
the planet in order to provide the global mineralogical composition of the
surface.
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