SB3

Small body surfaces give us meaningful insights into past and possibly present processes. They tell tales about a body’s origin, space environment, impact events, and even subsurface materials that loom onto the surface occasionally. Recent space missions to asteroids and comets have enabled the observation of the surfaces of small bodies with a variety of instruments including high-resolution and multispectral cameras as well as thermal emission spectrometers, x-ray spectrometers, laser altimeters, magnetometers, radiometers, and others.

By analyzing and interpreting these datasets in terms of small body surface geology, geomorphology, composition, and other physical parameters, we can learn about the development of their regoliths and the nature of their (sub-)surface materials, such as volatile contents or internal structure. Impact cratering, mass wasting, volatile outgassing, and other events can transport subsurface materials onto the surface and enable us to indirectly access subsurface materials and conditions.

This session invites presentations of small body surface-related research, including but not limited to geological and geomorphological observations, spectral analyses, mappings, models as well as statistics and their combined interpretations. We furthermore support comparative analyses between planet or moon surfaces and small body surfaces. Welcome are both data of past and ongoing space missions.