Regolith Properties of Mercury Derived from Observations and Modelling

The properties of Mercury's regolith have been investigated at optical and near-infrared wavelengths with high-resolution imaging, photometric, and spectroscopic observations with the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope. A new global optical map at a spatial resolution of 200 km shows that the well known (from Mariner 10) and poorly known hemispheres are indistinguishable with respect to the distribution, number density, and morphological parameters of bright albedo features. This indicates a globally uniform recent (