Lunar Sodium Data and Constraints on Source Processes

Details Lunar Sodium Data and Constraints on Source Processes Lunar Sodium Data and Constraints on Source Processes

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.1304n&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #13.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.406

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

One of the controversies concerning the origin of surface-bounded exospheres is whether sputtering is a viable source of exospheric particles, and in particular whether sputtering by highly charged ions is an extremely effective process. Another process that has been suggested by Sarantos et al (2008) is that ion-induced defects can enhance photon-stimulated desorption. The Moon offers a unique laboratory in which these processes can be studied. We have ancillary data about the Moon, including data on composition of the surface and on the flux of electrons to the surface. The Earth's Moon is unique in that it traverses the Earth's magnetosphere, where it is shielded from the solar wind. At times in its orbit the Moon traverses through the Earth's plasma sheet, while at other times it is not exposed to plasma sheet ions in its path through the magnetosphere. Lunar Prospector orbited the Moon for 18 months beginning in January, 1998. We have ground-based observations of the sodium exosphere during this time period, only some of which were published (Potter et al., 2000). We have reduced additional data obtained at the McMath-Pierce solar telescope during the decade preceding Lunar Prospector and during the mission. The observations coincide with two Magnetic Cloud events, one interplanetary shock event, two nominal solar wind times, and one intense meteor shower event, that of the Leonids 1998. By modeling the atmosphere using in-situ observations from Lunar Prospector, and ancillary data from ACE, we will constrain the importance of sputtering and photon-stimulated desorption. By comparing the exosphere during the Leonid shower event with that nominal inside the magnetosphere, we can constrain the importance of micrometeoritic vaporization, a continuous source caused by extremely small dust grains. We acknowledge support of this work by the NASA Planetary Astronomy and LASER programs.

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