Lunar Surface Outgassing and Alpha Particle Measurements

Details Lunar Surface Outgassing and Alpha Particle Measurements Lunar Surface Outgassing and Alpha Particle Measurements

Jan 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002mbns.conf...33l&link_type=abstract

The Moon Beyond 2002: Next Steps in Lunar Science and Exploration, p. 33

Physics

Alpha Particles, Lunar Surface, Outgassing, Radioactive Isotopes, Radioactive Decay, Spectrometers, Polonium Isotopes, Radon, Lunar Crust

Scientific paper

The Lunar Prospector Alpha Particle Spectrometer (LP APS) searched for lunar surface gas release events and mapped their distribution by detecting alpha particles produced by the decay of gaseous radon-222 (5.5 MeV, 3.8 day half-life), solid polonium-218 (6.0 MeV, 3 minute half-life), and solid polonium-210 (5.3 MeV, 138 day half-life, but held up in production by the 21 year half-life of lead-210). These three nuclides are radioactive daughters from the decay of uranium-238. Radon reaches the lunar surface either at areas of high soil porosity or where fissures release the trapped gases in which radon is entrained. Once released, the radon spreads out by "bouncing" across the surface on ballistic trajectories in a randomwalk process. The half-life of radon-222 allows the gas to spread out by several 100 km before it decays (depositing approximately half of the polonium-218 recoil nuclides on the lunar surface) and allows the APS to detect gas release events up to several days after they occur. The long residence time of the lead-210 precursor to polonium-210 allows the mapping of gas vents which have been active over the last approximately 60 years. Because radon and polonium are daughter products of the decay of uranium, the background level of alpha particle activity is a function of the lunar crustal uranium distribution.

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