Tackling the Lunar Dust-Plasma Environment: Challenges for Science and Exploration

Details Tackling the Lunar Dust-Plasma Environment: Challenges for Science and Exploration Tackling the Lunar Dust-Plasma Environment: Challenges for Science and Exploration

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.2506s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #25.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.459

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A horizon glow above the lunar terminator was observed during Surveyor, Apollo and other missions, and was most likely caused by sunlight scattered by exospheric dust. The Apollo 17 LEAM experiment detected fast-moving highly-charged lunar dust with a peak in activity around the terminator. This strongly suggested that the lunar electrostatic surface potentials - produced by incident solar UV and plasma - drives the transport of charged dust. Under extreme conditions, Lunar Prospector inferred potentials of several kilovolts negative. These observations hint at a complex surface-dust-exosphere-plasma coupled system, which is dependent on many temporally and spatially varying parameters, including solar irradiation, ambient plasma, surface composition and topography, magnetic anomalies, the lunar wake. The limited observations of this environment were performed by instruments designed to detect something else, hence it remains poorly understood.
The goal of characterizing and understanding this environment in the near term is in the NASA Science Plan 2007, and has been recommended by the NASA Advisory Council and the National Academies. This is also of critical importance to lunar exploration, since this environment presents two significant hazards: (1) electrostatic discharges, which can damage spacecraft systems; (2) highly adhesive and penetrating charged dust, which significantly interfered with Apollo surface operations.
Two concepts are presented that would provide a comprehensive set of targeted observations of this environment using tried-and-tested hardware. To obtain the local perspective on small-scales, the LEED suite of instruments would be deployed on the surface, while a global-scale picture would be achieved using a lunar orbiter. Both would measure electric fields, plasma and dust distribution. This new knowledge would be used to guide exploration activities and develop a predictive capability for the lunar environment, and be applied to all airless solar system bodies, such as Mercury and asteroids.

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