EGU2020-9657
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9657
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Spectroscopy of gamma-rays of Earth, Venus and Mercury: MGNS instrument onboard BepiColombo mission

Alexander Kozyrev1, Maxim Litvak1, Alexey Malakhov1, Igor Mitrofanov1, Maxim Mokrousov1, Anton Sanin1, Vladislav Tretiyakov1, Alan Owens2, Rita Schulz2, and Francesco Quarati3,4
Alexander Kozyrev et al.
  • 1Space Research Institute, Russian Federation (kozyrev@iki.rssi.ru)
  • 2European Space Agency, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
  • 3LumMat/RST/AP, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB Delft, The Netherlands
  • 4Gonitec BV, J. Bildersstraat 43, 2596 EE Den Haag, The Netherlands

The Mercurian Gamma-ray and Neutron Spectrometer (MGNS) is a scientific instrument developed to study the elementary composition of the Mercury’s sub-surface by measurements of neutron and gamma-rays emission of the planet. MGNS measures neutron fluxes in a wide energy range from thermal energy up to 10 MeV and gamma-rays in the energy range of 300 keV up to 10 MeV with the energy resolution of 5% FWHM at 662 keV and of 2% at 8 MeV. The innovative crystal of CeBr3 is used for getting such a good energy resolution for a scintillation detector of gamma-rays.

During the BepiColombo long cruise to Mercury, it is planned that the MGNS instrument will operate practically continuously to perform measurements of neutrons and gamma-rays fluxes for achieving two main goals of investigations: monitoring of the local radiation background of the prompt spacecraft emission due to bombardment by energetic particles of Galactic Cosmic Rays and the participation in the Inter Planetary Network (IPN) program for the localization of sources of Gamma-Ray Bursts in the sky.

The MGNS instrument will also perform special sessions of measurements during flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury with the objective to measure neutron and gamma-rays albedo of the upper atmosphere of Earth and Venus and of the surface of Mercury. Another objective is to test the computational model of the local background of the spacecraft using the data measured at different orbital phases of flyby trajectories. The low altitude flybys (such as the 700 km flyby for Venus and three 200 km flybys for Mercury) would be the most useful for such tests being BC maximally shadowed for cosmic radiation by the actual planet. Neutron and gamma-rays measurements during Earth flybys enable investigation of interaction between solar wind and Earth environments as well as studies of spacecraft neutron and gamma-rays background upon its passage through the Earth's radiation belts.

How to cite: Kozyrev, A., Litvak, M., Malakhov, A., Mitrofanov, I., Mokrousov, M., Sanin, A., Tretiyakov, V., Owens, A., Schulz, R., and Quarati, F.: Spectroscopy of gamma-rays of Earth, Venus and Mercury: MGNS instrument onboard BepiColombo mission, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9657, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9657, 2020

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