Local Scale Emissivity Variations on the Moon from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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[3672] Mineralogy And Petrology / Planetary Mineralogy And Petrology, [5410] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Composition, [5464] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Remote Sensing

Scientific paper

The Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE) aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has been mapping the surface of the Moon at mid-to-far infrared (7.8-400 µm) wavelengths since July 2009. The Diviner instrument has three narrow-band filters centered at 7.81, 8.28, and 8.55 µm designed to measure the position of the silicate Christiansen feature, which is indicative of the silica content of a material. Laboratory experiments have established that felsic minerals have a Christiansen feature at shorter wavelengths, while more mafic minerals have a Christiansen feature at longer wavelengths. In addition to the three narrow-band channels Diviner has four broadband channels covering 13-23 μm, 25-41 μm, 50-100 μm, and 100-400 μm. The average radiance from these channels can be calculated by multiplying the measured integrated radiance from each channel by the filter functions determined for each channel during pre-flight calibration and combined with the narrow band channels to create 7-point spectra. In practice, channel 9 (100-400 µm) is not used due to the lack of supporting laboratory measurements, so Diviner data are analyzed as 6 point spectra covering 7.8-100 µm. While global-scale physical and compositional phenomena detected and mapped by Diviner are addressed by other submitted abstracts (e.g. Paige et al.; Greenhagen et al.; Lucey et al.), here we focus on local-scale emissivity variations placed in the geologic context of specific regions of the Moon. Diviner infrared images are created by spatially binning radiance values from individual detectors. A Diviner image binned at 64 pixels per degree has a pixel size of ~470 m at the equator, which is close to the native resolution of the instrument in its current orbit, and adequate for detecting and mapping these local-scale variations. As an initial strategy for examining local-scale emissivity variations, we have focused on regions of the Moon known to exhibit multispectral color at other wavelengths. These include the so-called lunar “red spots,” which may be indicative of non-mare volcanism (Wood and Head, 1975; Chevrel et al., 1999), crater central peaks previously mapped in Clementine UVIS data by Tompkins and Pieters (1999), and the relatively complex geology of King crater, a young, 75 km diameter crater on the lunar far side (Heather and Dunkin, 2003). We will report on local emissivity variations detected at these and other localities and offer initial mineralogical interpretations based on 6-channel Diviner multispectral data.

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