Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p42a..04k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P42A-04
Physics
[0322] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Constituent Sources And Sinks, [2152] Interplanetary Physics / Pickup Ions, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon
Scientific paper
The composition and structure of neutral constituents in the lunar exosphere can be determined through measurements of phase space distributions of pickup ions borne from the exosphere. Much lower neutral exosphere densities can be derived from ion mass spectrometer measurements of pickup ions than can be determined by conventional neutral mass spectrometers or remote sensing instruments. One approach for deriving properties of neutral exospheric source gasses is to first compare observed ion spectra with pickup ion model phase space distributions. Neutral exosphere properties are then inferred by adjusting exosphere model parameters to obtain the best fit between the resulting model pickup ion distributions and the observed ion spectra. Adopting this path, we can obtain ion distributions from a new general pickup ion model, an extension of a simpler analytic description obtained from the Vlasov equation with an ion source. In turn, the ion source is formed from a three-dimensional exospheric density distribution. The initial stage of this approach used the Moon’s known neutral He and Na exospheres to derive He+ and Na+ pickup ion exospheres, including their phase space distributions, densities and fluxes. We have extended this by producing three dimensional neutral exosphere models for species known to be in the lunar exosphere, Na and K, as well as those expected to be in the lunar exosphere such as Ca, Mg, Al, Fe, and S. The pickup ion model can then use the neutral model to estimate the exosphere sources of recently observed pickup ions on KAGUYA. Future missions carrying ion spectrometers (e.g., ARTEMIS) will be able to study the lunar neutral exosphere with great sensitivity, yielding the necessary ion velocity spectra needed to further analysis of parent neutral exosphere properties. Neutral exosphere models will be presented as a first step toward this goal.
Dream
Halekas Jasper S.
Hartle Richard E.
Hurley Dana M.
Killen Rosemary Margaret
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