Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics Data processing and preliminary results of the Chang’e-3 VIS/NIR Imaging Spectrometer in-situ analysis ∗

Abstract The Chang’e-3 Visible and Near-infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS) is one of the four payloads on the Yutu rover. After traversing the landing site during the first two lunar days, four different areas are detected, and Level 2A and 2B ra-diance data have been released to the scientific community. The released data have been processed by dark current subtraction, correction for the effect of temperature, radiometric calibration and geometric calibration. We emphasize approaches for re-flectance analysis and mineral identification for in-situ analysis with VNIS. Then the preliminary spectral and mineralogical results from the landing site are derived. After comparing spectral data from VNIS with data collected by the M3 instrument and samples of mare that were returned from the Apollo program, all the reflectance data have been found to have similar absorption features near 1000 nm except lunar sample 71061. In addition, there is also a weak absorption feature between 1750∼2400 nm on VNIS, but the slopes of VNIS and M3 reflectance at longer wavelengths are lower than data taken from samples of lunar mare. Spectral parameters such as Band Centers and Integrated Band Depth Ratios are used to analyze mineralogical features. The result