Sources of the Escaping Lunar Atmosphere Derived from a Decade of Imaging Science Experiments

Details Sources of the Escaping Lunar Atmosphere Derived from a Decade of Imaging Science Experiments Sources of the Escaping Lunar Atmosphere Derived from a Decade of Imaging Science Experiments

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusmsa21b..02w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #SA21B-02

Physics

2427 Ionosphere/Atmosphere Interactions (0335), 5409 Atmospheres: Structure And Dynamics, 5707 Atmospheres: Structure And Dynamics, 5780 Tori And Exospheres

Scientific paper

The lunar sodium exosphere owes its existence to the impact of solar photons, solar wind plasma, and meteorites on the lunar surface. Perhaps the most effective methods of testing the effects of each impact process are to make two or more similar observations of the lunar exosphere during periods when the flux of one or more of these agents has changed, or to make a single observation where the effects of different fluxes can be seen simultaneously. We have observed the escaping component of the lunar sodium exosphere under several different sets of conditions. Magnetospheric plasma sputtering was tested during five Full-Moon phase observations in eclipse, where the Moon was in the Earth's magnetospheric plasma sheet three times, and outside of the sheet twice. Multiple observations of the lunar sodium tail at New Moon phase include a unique observation affected by the spectacular 1998 Leonid Meteor shower. Finally, observations near quarter Moon phase show latitudinal variations in solar wind sputtering and/or photon stimulated desorption. In this paper we will summarize the source strengths from each of these mechanisms derived from Monte Carlo simulations studies.

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