Exploring Near Earth Asteroids in the Infrared, supporting NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return mission.

更好地了解我们太阳系的组成部分的需要已经成为一项全球性的使命，因为NASA、ESA和JAXA的任务旨在对原始天体进行测量，并在某些情况下对其进行采样。美国宇航局的起源、光谱解释、资源识别和安全--风化层探测器（OSIRIS-REx）使命将是第一批前往太阳系原始小行星（1999 RQ 36，也称为Bennu）的任务之一，并从其表面带回原始样本[例如Lauretta等人，2012]。OSIRIS-REx于2016年9月成功推出，预计将于2018年中期在该项目期间抵达。来自Bennu表面的样本材料将为我们的太阳系中有机材料的形成，生存能力和性质提供重要的见解，这些有机材料可能在地球上形成生命，以及这些原始物体的物理性质和组成。 Bennu的轨道测量将是第一个详细描述原始天体的特征，以了解其表面的形态，热物理和光度性质以及其化学和矿物学。准确确定这些参数对于了解近地小行星的轨道演变及其作为危险物体的潜力至关重要。 该项目将满足我们参考实验室光谱的主要实验室需求，并有助于分析OSIRIS-REx使命在2018年抵达Bennu时返回的数据。通过与遥感数据建立联系，拟议的实验室工作将使对单个物体的抽样测量能够置于太阳系演变的更广泛背景下。

The need to better understand the building blocks of our solar system has become a global mission as NASA, ESA, and JAXA have missions designed to characterise and in some cases sample primitive bodies. NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission will be one of the first missions to a primitive asteroid in the solar system (1999 RQ36 also known as Bennu) and return with a pristine sample from its surface [e.g. Lauretta et al., 2012]. OSIRIS-REx was successfully launched in September 2016 and is due to arrive in mid 2018, during the time period of this project. Sample materials from Bennu's surface will provide significant insights into the formation, survivability and nature of organic materials in our solar system, which could have formed life on Earth, as well as the physical nature and composition of such primitive bodies. Orbital measurements of Bennu will be the first to characterize a primitive body in such detail to understand the morphology, thermophysical and photometric nature of the surface as well as its chemistry and mineralogy. Accurate determination of these parameters are essential to understanding the orbital evolution of Near Earth Asteroids and their potential as hazardous objects. This project will fill a major laboratory need in our reference laboratory spectra and help with analysis of data as it is returned by the OSIRIS-REx mission as it arrives a Bennu in 2018. By making links to remote sensing data the proposed laboratory work will allow sample measurements of individual objects to be placed in their wider context of solar system evolution.