Costa, Nicole and Bonetto, Alessandro and Ferretti, Patrizia and Casarotto, Bruno and Massironi, Matteo and Altieri, Francesca and Nava, Jacopo and Favero, Marco (2024) Martian simulant analysis dataset. [Data Collection]
Collection description
This dataset contains data derived from chemical, mineralogical, granulometric and hyperspectral acquisitions of Mars Global (MGS-1) High-Fidelity Martian Dirt Simulant [1], Mojave Mars Simulant MMS-1 and Enhanced Mars Simulant (MMS-2). The instruments used for this work are: - Laser Diffraction Particle Size Analyzer Malvern Panalytical Mastersizer3000: granulometric analysis; - Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) Perkin-Elmer NexION 350X: chemical analysis; - X-Ray powder Diffractometer (XRD) Philips X’Pert PRO: mineralogical analysis; - Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM-EDS) Tescan SOLARIS equipped with Oxford Instruments microanalytical system: mineralogical analysis. - Headwall Photonics Nano-Hyperspec (400-1000 nm) and Micro-Hyperspec (900-2500 nm) cameras: hyperspectral acquisitions; The Mastersizer3000 software creates tables and related plots of grainsize ready to use. The detector of mass spectrometer generates data in CPS (counts per second). Knowing the dilutions of the solutions, the spectrometer software calculates the quantities in terms of weight over volume (µg/l) in a table. Thereafter, knowing the initial weights of the simulant in the solutions, the operator converts data from weight over volume (µg/l) to weight over weight (mg/kg). Qualitative phase analysis on powder diffraction data has been run through a search-match algorithm, in order to identify the minerals species. Quantitative phase analysis has been performed using the Rietveld method with internal standard addition, as implemented in Profex-BGMS v. 5.2.3. The SEM products are photos of the sites, where the mineralogical analysis is performed, and graphs with peaks. The peaks are associated with specific chemical elements through the SEM software, that allows to determine the minerals present in the simulant. It was carried out only on the largest grains of MGS-1 simulant. The hyperspectral cameras acquire hyperspectral cubes that the operator can open in ENVI software [3] or similar ones for hyperspectral imaging data-sets to extrapolate the spectrum of the simulants. The spectrum is saved in table format (ASCII) and can be opened in Origin software [4] or any software dedicated to graph and table management (e.g., Excel). In Origin, the operator produces the spectral plot, where he/she can continue with direct interpretations of absorption peaks, characteristic of particular minerals.
10.25430/researchdata.cab.unipd.it.00001279
orcid.org/0009-0003-5178-3682
