Isro's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter finds distribution of gas in moon’s atmosphere

India’s Chandrayaan-2 has made new observations about the distribution of an important gas in the moon’s upper atmosphere, which can offer new insights into the lunar surroundings.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said that the new data from Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2) mass spectrometer on Chandrayaan-2 show the distribution of Argon-40 gas in the lunar ‘exosphere’, beyond the areas this was known to exist.

Picture courtesy: Isro


The Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2), a quadrupole mass spectrometer onboard Chandrayaan-2 mission has made the first-of-its-kind observations of the global distribution of Argon-40 in the tenuous lunar exosphere.  These observations provide insight on the dynamics of the lunar exospheric species, as well as on the radiogenic activities in the first few tens of meters below the lunar surface, said the space agency.

‘Exosphere’ is the outermost region of the upper atmosphere of a celestial body where the constituent atoms and molecules rarely collide with each other and can escape into space. Earth’s Moon features a surface-boundary-exosphere. 

Isro explained that, for Moon, different constituents in the exosphere are fed from the surface by a variety of processes, such as thermal desorption, solar wind sputtering, photo-stimulated desorption, and micrometeorite impact vaporization. The exospheric atoms may be lost to space by the thermal escape (also known as the Jean’s escape). Also, the atoms get ionized by photo-ionization and charge exchange with the solar wind ions. Subsequently, they can be swept away by the convective electric field of the solar wind. Some of these atoms/ions can also be deposited back on the lunar surface. Thus, the lunar exosphere exists as a result of a dynamic equilibrium between several source and sink processes.

Noble gases serve as important tracers to understand the processes of surface-exosphere interaction, and Argon-40 (Ar-40) is such an important tracer atom to study the dynamics of the lunar exospheric species. Ar-40 originates from the radioactive disintegration of Potassium-40 (K-40) present below the lunar surface. Once formed, it diffuses through the inter-granular space and makes way up to the lunar exosphere through seepages and faults.

The CHACE-2 observations provide the diurnal and spatial variation of Ar-40 covering the equatorial and mid latitude regions of the Moon.  The uniqueness of this result from Chandrayaan-2 mission lies in the fact that although Apollo-17 and LADEE missions have detected the presence of Ar-40 in the lunar exosphere, the measurements were confined to the near-equatorial region of the Moon. As there is a steep latitudinal temperature gradient of the lunar surface, it was, so far, a gap area to study the global dynamics of the lunar exospheric species, which is a temperature-driven process.  In this context, the observations by CHACE-2 onboard Chandrayaan-2 orbiter on Ar-40 up to the mid-latitude regions (−60º to +60º) play a significant role to bridge the gap in the knowledge, Isro explained.

CHACE-2 observations reveal an increase in the number density of Ar-40 near the sunrise terminator, a decrease through the dayside, a secondary peak near sunset terminator and a night-side minima. This is the typical behaviour of a condensable gas.

In 2017, Isro launched Chandrayaan-2 and the main of the mission was to demonstrate ISRO’s capability to make a soft landing on the moon. The mission had a lander and a rover component that were supposed to carry out a number of experiments on the lunar surface. 

However, due to technical glitches in the final moments ahead of the touchdown, the lander was unable to make a soft landing. Instead, it crash-landed and got destroyed.

The Orbiter part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, however, was unaffected, and is continuing to carry out its scientific experiments. The Orbiter is carrying eight instruments, including CHACE-2, for different kinds of measurements. These instruments have been sending a wealth of new information about the moon and its surroundings.

Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to be launched later this year.

ends

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