Planetary and Space Science, May (vol. 244) is about the mineralogy/petrology:
Markus, K. Arnold, G. Moroz, L. et al. Laboratory reflectance spectra of enstatite and ol… a 105887 .2024.105887
Bourget, A. Prem, P. Blewett, D. et al. Optical polarization studies of latex beads in aque… a 105891 .2024.105891
Enstatite and oldhamite are key minerals of E-chondrites, the building blocks of Earth and the other terrestrial planets. Since we have E-chondrite meteorites, we can use them as “ground truth” for remote sensing of (what would be) terrestrial planets. In this case, we suspect Mercury has an enstatite/oldhamite-rich surface, at least in spectral terms. (Some minerals turn out to be really obvious in our spectrographs. Other components, spectrally bland or weak, and hard to spot.) In this case case (a broader view), the Rosetta spacecraft passed asteroid Šteins on the way to Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Šteins appears to be (our only up-close look at) an E-chondrite asteroid, and we have a chain of evidence. Does it lead all the way to Mercury?
Bourget et al. are continuing an important line of work. Previous groups have tried to identify icy bodies, spectrally. Unfortunately, water ice’s spectra is weak to undetectable in visible bands, where we can look easily. To make matters worse, it only takes a little contamination before ice looks like contaminant, not dirty ice. The open question of ice/no-ice continues. Smarter people than I realized latex makes a handy water simulant: what we call latex is actually a suspension of organics in a water carrier. Measuring various concoctions of latex and ‘contaminant’ then suggests possible spectral signs we should look for on Mars, outer Solar System satellites, the icier asteroids, etc.