New Martian Dust Simulant JMDS-1 and Applications to Laboratory Thermal Conductivity Measurements

Abstract

Martian dust simulant (i.e., a terrestrial substitute for Martian dust) is the basis for experimentally investigating the properties of Martian dust and its effects on Mars exploration activities. In this study, we reported a new Martian dust simulant (Jining Martian Dust Simulant, called JMDS-1), which was prepared based on terrestrial Jining basalt (90 wt%) and other mineral phases (i.e., 2 wt% magnetite, 2 wt% hematite, 2 wt% anhydrite, 2 wt% calcite, and 2 wt% kaolin). Measurements of JMDS-1 dust simulant show that JMDS-1 has a bulk composition, mineralogy, reflectance spectra, and particle characteristics similar to the Martian dust detected by Mars rovers. In addition, we measured the thermal conductivity of dust simulant, soil simulant, and dust-soil simulant mixtures under simulated Martian conditions (i.e., −30°C; 500–1,000 Pa). The results reveal that the micro-sized dust simulant has a thermal conductivity of ∼0.015 W/mK, which is two times lower than the thermal conductivity of sub-millimeter sized soil simulant (i.e., ∼0.035 W/mK). This implies that the dust layer on Mars seems to play a significant role to change the thermal properties of surface materials.