Retention of H20 Delivered to the Moon by Comet Impact

Details Retention of H20 Delivered to the Moon by Comet Impact Retention of H20 Delivered to the Moon by Comet Impact

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5714o&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #57.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.590

Mathematics

Probability

Scientific paper

The presence of water ice trapped within permanently shaded regions on the Moon was first posited in the early stages of lunar exploration and remains a possibility decades later. The Lunar Prospector Spectroscopy Experiment observed high abundances of hydrogen generally distributed near both lunar poles relative to the hydrogen abundance measured at the equator, and many emplacement mechanisms for this observed hydrogen are hypothesized, including: fluid inclusions from impacting stony meteorites, retention of solar hydrogen released in solar flares, adsorption of water, and recent impact of a comet onto the lunar surface.
We investigate the feasibility of water ice delivery via comet impacts. Considerations for the likelihood of cometary impacts producing polar hydrogen abundances include the probability of cometary impact and water mass flux, the effect of obliquity of the impact on vaporization of the impactor, and the migration of water vapor to the cold traps in the lunar polar regions. Here we present a novel set of calculations for the fate of cometary water impacting the moon. Using the RAGE hydrocode and the Pactech/SAIC equation of state for water, we model impacts of solid water ice spheres into basalt targets. We vary impactor diameter and velocity to test water retention rates for cometary delivery of water ice to the Moon. Initial simulations suggest that as much as 40% of ice projectile debris remains gravitationally bound to the moon after high velocity (30 km/s) impacts.
This work is supported by the University of California Santa Cruz Chancellors Fellowship and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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