Mathematics – Probability
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.2510c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #25.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.460
Mathematics
Probability
Scientific paper
We perform a statistical evaluation of the repeatability of transient lunar phenomena (TLP) observations despite the changing collection of observers. We find that certain sites are robust to changes in the characteristics of the observers; these sites include craters Aristarchus, Plato and the major, young impacts (Copernicus, Kepler & Tycho), plus Grimaldi and perhaps Mare Crisium. Leading to this analysis, we characterized the extent to which TLP reports from some observers were known by subsequent observers, and find that until the year 1956, TLPs were poorly known, but after that time many reports were generated by observers who were aware of and even searching for TLPs. Since 1956, several common features appear that were nearly absent in TLP reports prior to this, thus failing our robustness tests. Examples of such features are TLP observations in craters Alphonsus, Gassendi and Ross D.
There are other classes of transient events on and in the Moon: moonquakes and outgassing events traced by radioactive Rn-222 gas. These can be localized and we find an amazing correspondence: all of the Rn-222 events land in the robust TLP sites that we found previously, which has a probability of less than 0.01% of occurring at random. Furthermore, TLPs (both the robust sample and the original sample before the robustness tests) are strongly correlated with the boundary between the maria and highlands. Surprisingly, the alpha-particle radioactive signal from Po-210, a product of Rn-222 decay, also correlates with the same boundary. This is an independent indication of a correlation of TLPs with outgassing, also at the 0.01% random probability level. We conclude that TLPs are associated with lunar outgassing.
We will also discuss theoretical implications of the above conclusions, and suggested observational and experimental approaches to follow up on this study.
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