The JUICE 2024 close flyby of the Moon: thermal assessment from MAJIS
5 affiliations
- 1National Institute for Astrophysics (Rome, Italy)
- 2Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, CNRS/Paris-Saclay University, Paris, France
- 3Department of Physics, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy
- 4Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (INAF–IAPS), Rome, Italy
- 5Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU–APL), Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA
Abstract
During the August 2024 lunar flyby of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), the MAJIS imaging spectrometer acquired the first hyperspectral observations of the Moon extending up to 5.56 µm at sub-kilometre resolution. This dataset provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the near-infrared thermal emission of the lunar surface and to validate MAJIS capabilities in a well-characterized planetary environment. We derive surface temperature and spectral emissivity using three independent approaches: a Bayesian inversion constrained by radiative transfer, an empirical correction based on laboratory relationships for lunar soils, and a roughness-informed thermal model that explicitly accounts for surface geometry and anisothermality. All methods reproduce the expected dependence of temperature on solar illumination, while their divergences at high incidence angles highlight the role of roughness and unresolved topography. The roughness-informed model achieves the closest agreement with thermophysical predictions, whereas the Bayesian and empirical approaches exhibit complementary strengths under different illumination regimes. Emissivity retrievals consistently reveal higher values in mare regions than in surrounding highlands, reflecting known compositional and textural contrasts, and show a wavelength-dependent inversion relative to longer-wavelength Diviner measurements. These results establish a validated framework for MAJIS thermal analysis of airless bodies and provide a benchmark for its future application to the investigation of the Jovian satellites.
Related
- Spectral analysis of lunar regions observed by MAJIS during the JUICE Moon-Earth flyby
- A simulator of the MAJIS instrument onboard the JUICE mission: description and application to operational and scientific cases
- Near-perihelion Activity and Composition of 3I/ATLAS from JUICE/MAJIS Observations
- Post launch spectral and radiometric performances of MAJIS, the VIS-NIR imaging spectrometer of JUICE
- JUICE-MAJIS Earth observations during the 2024 gravity assist: first analysis and comparison with PRISMA data
BibTeX
@article{tosi2026juice,
title = {{The JUICE 2024 close flyby of the Moon: thermal assessment from MAJIS}},
author = {F. Tosi and Clément Royer and Federico Colaiuta and François Poulet and Tyler Powell and B. T. Greenhagen and Y. Langevin and A. Mura and Giuseppe Piccioni and C. Pilorget and Cristian Carli and Francesca Zambon},
journal = {Annales Geophysicae},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.5194/angeo-44-547-2026},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-547-2026},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The JUICE 2024 close flyby of the Moon: thermal assessment from MAJIS
AU - F. Tosi
AU - Clément Royer
AU - Federico Colaiuta
AU - François Poulet
AU - Tyler Powell
AU - B. T. Greenhagen
AU - Y. Langevin
AU - A. Mura
AU - Giuseppe Piccioni
AU - C. Pilorget
AU - Cristian Carli
AU - Francesca Zambon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/24
JO - Annales Geophysicae
DO - 10.5194/angeo-44-547-2026
UR - https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-44-547-2026
AB - During the August 2024 lunar flyby of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), the MAJIS imaging spectrometer acquired the first hyperspectral observations of the Moon extending up to 5.56 µm at sub-kilometre resolution. This dataset provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the near-infrared thermal emission of the lunar surface and to validate MAJIS capabilities in a well-characterized planetary environment. We derive surface temperature and spectral emissivity using three independent approaches: a Bayesian inversion constrained by radiative transfer, an empirical correction based on laboratory relationships for lunar soils, and a roughness-informed thermal model that explicitly accounts for surface geometry and anisothermality. All methods reproduce the expected dependence of temperature on solar illumination, while their divergences at high incidence angles highlight the role of roughness and unresolved topography. The roughness-informed model achieves the closest agreement with thermophysical predictions, whereas the Bayesian and empirical approaches exhibit complementary strengths under different illumination regimes. Emissivity retrievals consistently reveal higher values in mare regions than in surrounding highlands, reflecting known compositional and textural contrasts, and show a wavelength-dependent inversion relative to longer-wavelength Diviner measurements. These results establish a validated framework for MAJIS thermal analysis of airless bodies and provide a benchmark for its future application to the investigation of the Jovian satellites.
SN - 0992-7689
SN - 1432-0576
ER -