A new method to determine the grain size of planetary regolith

Abstract

Airless planetary bodies are covered by a dusty layer called regolith. The grain size of the regolith determines the temperature and the mechanical strength of the surface layers. Thus, knowledge of the grain size of planetary regolith helps to prepare future landing and/or sample-return missions. In this work, we present a method to determine the grain size of planetary regolith by using remote measurements of the thermal inertia. We found that small bodies in the Solar System (diameter less than ~100 km) are covered by relatively coarse regolith grains with typical particle sizes in the millimeter to centimeter regime, whereas large objects possess very fine regolith with grain sizes between 10 and 100 micrometer.