OSIRIS-REx's Two Spectrometers
OSIRIS- REx has two spectrometers onboard. One is the visible and near
infrared spectrometer OVIRS and the other is the farther infrared
spectrometer OTES.
OVIRS is specifically looking at the reflected
sunlight in the visible wavelength region. So basically, we can see which
minerals are absorbing the sunlight and it extends a little bit into the thermal
Infrared, which is the heat signature coming off the surface.
OTES
is farther in the infrared, well beyond where your eye can see and it's more
sensitive to the thermal signature of the surface. Using that you can look for
minerals, but you can also look to see how the different grains on the surface
hold heat and then later release them and this tells us a lot about the
surface structure as well as the composition. So combined these two
spectrometers are an incredibly powerful suite of being able to sense the
temperatures and composition at the same time on the surface.