Abstract DGP2026-94

Venus analogue measurements in the laboratory using an emulator of VERITAS’s VEM instrument

S. P. Garland (1), S. Adeli (1), N. Müller (1,2), C. Althaus (1), M. D. Dyar (3), A. Domac (1), S. E. Smrekar (4), D. C. Nunes (4), G. Alemanno (1), O. Barraud (1), A. Maturilli (1), L. Breitenfeld (3,5), C. W. Hamilton (6), F. Trauthan (1), D. Wendler (1), M. Pertenais (1), T. Hagelschuer (1), G. Peter (1), J. Helbert (7), A. C. Plesa (1) and the VERITAS Science Team

(1) Institute of Space Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin; Germany. (2) Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. (3) Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, U.S.A. (4) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA, USA. (5) Mount Holyoke College, MA, USA. (6) Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. (7) ESTEC, European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Several major missions to Venus are planned for launch in the early 2030’s, amongst them are NASA’s VERITAS [1] and ESA’s EnVision [2] missions. The VERITAS mission will launch with the Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) instrument [3] designed to measure the emissivity of Venus’s surface and atmosphere. Despite being our closest neighbour, we know surprisingly little about Venus, partly due to its optically dense atmosphere of CO2 with clouds of H2SO4, making direct surface observations challenging. The VEM instrument will overcome this challenge by exploiting 6 narrow bands of higher atmospheric transmission in the near infrared (NIR) between 0.86 and 1.18 µm, with the goal of distinguishing felsic from mafic rock types and contributing to the detection of recent or active volcanism [1]. Additional bands observing the cloud and atmosphere composition can be used to correct for atmospheric effects and distortion. In preparation for the mission, extensive work is being carried out on the spectroscopy of Venus surface analogues in the laboratory, as well as at Venus analogue field sites.

To this end an emulator of the VEM instrument was constructed for field measurements as part of a VERITAS Science Team campaign in Iceland in 2023 [4,5,6]. Since then, the emulator has been used for laboratory measurements to obtain two-dimensional emission measurements from analogue samples at Venus temperatures [7], allowing detailed investigation of spatial variation of sample emission. This contribution will give an overview of the results from the latest experimental campaigns and how they are being used for preparations of measurements of hot Venus analogues with the VEM QM model, planned for early 2027.

[1] Smrekar, S. (2022) IEEE Aerospace Conf. [2] Ghail, R. C. et al. (2012) Exp. Astron., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 337–363 [3] Helbert, J., et al. (2022) SPIE. [4] Nunes, D. et al. (2024) LPSC 55. [5] Garland, S. et al. (2024) SPIE. [6] Adeli, S. et al. (2024) LPI Contributions, vol. 3040, p. 1286. [7] Garland, S. et al. (2025) SPIE.