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D.K. Lynch, R.W. Russell, R.J. Rudy, S. Mazuk, C.C. Venturini (The Aerospace Corp.), H. B. Hammel (Space Science Institute), R.B. Perry (NASA LaRC), M.V. Sykes (Univ. Arizona), R.C. Puetter (UCSD)
We report 3 -13 µm spectroscopy of the moons of Mars. Observations were made using the Broadband Array Spectrograph System (BASS) with a 3.4-arcsec diameter beam on the NASA IRTF on Aug 21.6 2003 UT. The spectra for both objects showed significant departures from a single-temperature gray body function. The 5 -12 µm color temperatures of Deimos and Phobos were 310 +/- 5 K and 345 K +/- 5 K respectively, significantly higher than the black body thermal equilibrium temperature (237 K) at Mars’ heliocentric distance. Relative to the color temperature fits, Deimos exhibited significant excess emission between 8 and 10.5 microns and Phobos showed only marginal excess emission. These findings are based on a flux model for the calibrator of alpha Tau that includes the SiO absorption between 7.9 and 10 µm. The M and [N = 10.2 µm] magnitudes for Deimos were 5.3 +/- 0.3 and 0.76 +/- 0.05 respectively. The L, M and [N = 10.2 µm] magnitudes for Phobos were 6.3, 4.2 and 0.05 respectively, all +/- 0.07.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.