Spectroscopy of Icy Moon Surface Materials

Remote sensing of icy objects in the outer solar system relies upon availability of appropriate laboratory measurements. Surface deposits of specific substances often provide our most direct route to understanding interior composition, thereby informing theories of endogenic surface modification, exogenic surface processing and processes involving exchange of material with the interiors. Visible to near-infrared reflectance spectra of properly prepared compounds are required to enable retrieval of surface abundances through linear and nonlinear mixture analysis applied to spacecraft observations of icy bodies. This chapter describes the techniques, conditions and approaches necessary to provide reference spectra of use to theoretical models of icy satellite surface compositions, and summarizes the current state of knowledge represented in the published literature.