Identification of salts and minerals in icy matrices at planetary environmental conditions by LIBS atomic emission spectroscopy

Kurzfassung

The in-situ exploration of the Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, composed of silicate rock and water ice, will bear specific requirements to most analytical techniques, especially optical instruments, due to its heterogeneity in density, optical absorbance, stability of volatile component, including those produced during on-board sample preparation procedures. We focus in the present work on water ice-type matrices with (i) transparent quasi-homogeneous frozen salt solutions and (ii) semi-transparent heterogeneous ice-rock mixtures. We demonstrate the spectroscopy capability for elemental analysis in both types of matrices under simulated (i) Martian and (ii) vacuum conditions.