PALLAS: Planetary Analogues Laboratory for Light, Atmosphere, and Surface Simulations

Abstract

Humankind has been interested in space throughout the ages and studies of the universe and our own solar system have been ongoing since the first observations of celestial bodies. In the current era space exploration has provided in situ data for the different bodies in our solar system. To fully comprehend the underlying processes occurring in these bodies, missions and telescope observations are, however, not sufficient and additional modelling studies, both numerical and analogue, are necessary. In this paper we present a new facility specifically designed to experimentally study organic compounds under simulated planetary (sub)surface conditions on rocky bodies in our solar system: PALLAS, the Planetary Analogues Laboratory for Light, Atmosphere, and Surface Simulations. We give an overview of planetary conditions that can be simulated in this facility and that are known to affect organic compounds: radiation, atmospheric composition, temperature and surface composition.