Computer Science
Scientific paper
Dec 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996icar..124..530f&link_type=abstract
Icarus, Volume 124, Issue 2, pp. 530-536.
Computer Science
21
Scientific paper
The first results of an ongoing effort to search for new species in the lunar atmosphere are presented. The observations in terms of the degree to which atomic metal abundances in the lunar atmosphere are stoichiometric, that is, proportional to surface abundances (as the Na:K ratio is), are discussed. Na and K are the only atmospheric constituents to have been observed from Earth, but Apollo sample returns established that a variety of species are more abundant in the lunar surface than either Na or K. Simple stoichiometric arguments (i.e., assuming atmospheric production proportional to surface abundance) predict that relatively abundant lunar surface constituents such as Si, Al, Ca, Mg, Fe, and Ti should be more abundant in the lunar atmosphere than either Na or K. The 2.7-m coude and 2.1-m cassegrain echelle spectrographs at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory were used to investigate this hypothesis by searching for solar resonant scattering lines of nine metallic species between 3700 and 9700 A. Spectra were taken 20 arcsec above the apparent subsolar limb of the Moon near quarter phase on 30 July 1994 and 10-12 March 1995. Upper limits were obtained for the first time for the abundant lunar surface species Si, Al, Ca, Fe, and Ti, as well as Ba and the alkalis Li, Rb, and Cs. In the cases of Si, Ca, Fe, and Ti, the derived upper limits are more than an order of magnitude lower than the simple stoichiometric model predicts. The upper limits for Li and Al are less constraining. The Ba, Rb, and Cs upper limits lead to the conclusion that those species are not stoichiometrically overabundant above the detection threshold in the atmosphere. It is concluded that the stoichiometric Na:K ratio is peculiar in that the mechanism(s) that produce the lunar Na and K atmosphere somehow favor those atomic species over many more or comparably abundant lunar surface species.
Alan Stern S.
Flynn Brian Charles
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