Among the geological features revealed by the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) mission on the surface of Mercury, hollows are the most surprising and least understood. Possibly related to volatile components, hollows are small depressions, surrounded by bright halos and are not observed on any other surfaces in our solar system. Previous analysis of multispectral data obtained by Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) has shown that some hollows have weak spectral absorption features centered at around 600 nm. In this work, we analyzed four hollows with observations acquired by the Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) on board MESSENGER with more than 230 spectral channels from the near‐ultraviolet to the near‐infrared. Unlike previous MDIS multispectral data, the MASCS reflectance spectra exhibit no absorption features in the MDIS wavelength range. However, we found that hollows have unique spectral properties in the near‐ultraviolet, with a spectral curvature between 300 and 600 nm that is distinctly different from other geological units. Moreover, we used MASCS observations with the best available spatial resolution (<0.5 km/pixel) to analyze both parts of a hollow: the flat floor and the surrounding halo. Our results support the hypothesis that hollows form by a sublimation process and scarp retreat.

中文翻译：

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空心玻璃上汞的近紫外到近红外光谱性质：对起源和形成过程的影响

在水星表面的MESSENGER（水星表面，太空环境，地球化学和测距）任务揭示的地质特征中，最令人惊讶和了解最少的是凹陷。凹陷可能与挥发性成分有关，凹陷是小凹陷，周围是明亮的光晕，在我们的太阳系的其他任何表面上都没有观察到。先前通过水星双成像系统（MDIS）获得的多光谱数据分析显示，某些凹陷的光谱吸收特征集中在600 nm左右。在这项工作中，我们利用MESSENGER上的水银大气和表面成分光谱仪（MASCS）获得的观测结果分析了四个凹陷，这些观测结果具有从近紫外到近红外的230多个光谱通道。与以前的MDIS多光谱数据不同，MASCS反射光谱在MDIS波长范围内没有吸收特征。但是，我们发现，中空洞在近紫外线中具有独特的光谱特性，其光谱曲率在300至600 nm之间，与其他地质单元明显不同。此外，我们使用具有最佳可用空间分辨率（<0.5 km /像素）的MASCS观测数据来分析凹陷的两个部分：平坦的地板和周围的光晕。我们的结果支持这样的假设，即通过升华过程和陡峭的退缩形成空洞。我们使用具有最佳可用空间分辨率（<0.5 km /像素）的MASCS观测值来分析凹陷的两个部分：平坦的地板和周围的光晕。我们的结果支持这样的假设，即通过升华过程和陡峭的退缩形成空洞。我们使用具有最佳可用空间分辨率（<0.5 km /像素）的MASCS观测值来分析凹陷的两个部分：平坦的地板和周围的光晕。我们的结果支持以下假设：通过升华过程和陡峭的退缩形成空洞。