行星挥发分提取和分析

Extraction and analysis of planetary volatiles

行星挥发分是指可以通过撞击、加热等物理过程从行星表面固体样品中分离出的气相物质.这些物质一方面对于研究太阳系的形成和行星及其卫星的演化至关重要,另一方面可以为深空探测提供资源.随着近几十年来对深空的探索,挥发分的探测结果也不断刷新人类对宇宙的认识.例如,月球极地冰的发现改变了对月球匮乏挥发分的印象;在火星上检测到疑似生物成因甲烷重燃了火星曾经存在生命的希望;67P彗星氢同位素探测指示地球上的水大部分来自小行星,而不是彗星.在深空探测中,高温热解炉是挥发分提取的主要手段,质谱分析是测试的主要方法.本文总结了深空探测中挥发分的提取方法和功能参数,并对比了挥发分测量质谱仪的性能指标.此外,本文还介绍了未来的深空探测任务用于挥发分探测的载荷.

Planetary volatiles refer to material components that can be separated from a solid sample as a gas phase via physical processes such as impact and heating. On the one hand, these materials are crucial for studying the formation of the solar system and the evolution of planets and their satellites. On the other hand, they provide resources for deep space exploration. Along with the exploration of deep space in recent decades, the detection of volatiles has also advanced our understanding of the cosmos. For example, the discovery of the Moon’s polar ice has changed the impression that the Moon seriously lacks volatiles, the discovery of suspected biogenic methane on Mars has rekindled people’s hope that Mars may once have harbored life, and studies of the hydrogen isotopes in comet 67 P have suggested that most of the water on Earth had come from asteroids instead of comets. The combination of pyrolysis in a high-temperature furnace with mass spectrometry is the main method used to extract and analyze volatiles from deep space. This paper summarizes the extraction methods used and the functional parameters of volatile extraction payloads in deep space exploration and compares the performance indexes of the mass spectrometers used for volatile analysis. Furthermore, this paper introduces some volatiles payloads that may be extracted and analyzed in future deep space exploration missions.