Micro-Raman and FTIR spectroscopic characterization of the first Turkish lunar regolith simulant

Abstract

In this work, Infrared and Raman spectroscopic investigations on a new Turkish lunar regolith simulant (TBG-1), Chinese (own product), and Japanese simulants are presented for the first time. Our Raman spectroscopic investigation on TBG-1 simulant implies that it is mainly forsteritic olivine. Moreover, the Chinese sample produced by our group in T & uuml;rkiye showed carbonate peaks at 712 cm-1 and 878 cm-1 in the IR spectra, which were attributed as calcium or sodium carbonates which could be a result of terrestrial weathering. Here, we propose that TBG-1 is close to the composition of lunar highland impact glass in terms of its (Mg, Ca)/Al2O3 ratios. Our effort suggested that our recently produced Turkish simulant is similar to the Apollo 11 lunar soil sample in terms of its Al2O3 and TiO2 composition. Some of the samples we collected to simulate lunar regolith also show similarities to the Apollo 14 samples and JSC-1A simulant produced by NASA.