VIRTIS-M laboratory spectral measurements of analogues cometary samples

VIRTIS stands for Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer. VIRTIS is an imaging spectrometer to be flown on the Rosetta mission. The scienti fic objectives of VIRTIS are to determine the composition of surface materi al of the comet P-Wirtanen, as well as two asteroids. VIRTIS is composed of two subsystems named VIRTIS-M and VIRTIS-H.VIRTIS-M, which stands for Mapp ing, and is devoted to the medium spectral resolution imaging, while VIRTIS -H, which stands for High, is a spectrometer for high spectral resolution. In this paper we show the suitability of VIRTIS for its main scientific obj ective, the mineralogical mapping and identification. We use the developing model of VIRTIS-M to measure in a laboratory the spectral features of some samples (like Allende and stony meteorites) that can be representative of the refractory component of cometary material. We only use the visible part of the spectrum since the infrared is currently under construction. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.