Lunar Dielectric Constants from Radio Thermal Emission Measurements

Details Lunar Dielectric Constants from Radio Thermal Emission Measurements Lunar Dielectric Constants from Radio Thermal Emission Measurements

Mar 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996lpi....27..805m&link_type=abstract

Lunar and Planetary Science, volume 27, page 805

Physics

Dielectric Constant, Emission: Thermal, Interferometry, Moon, Regolith

Scientific paper

Thermal emission from the Moon at 21 cm was measured in all four Stokes parameters with the Very Large Array (VLA). The polarization properties of the emission are determined primarily by the dielectric constant of the regolith material, the fraction of the emergent radiation that is diffused, and the surface roughness on scales larger than the wavelength. Estimates of the dielectric constant were obtained at ~90 km resolution and the smooth sphere values range from ~2 to ~4. Results are illustrated for the Crisium area where the mare regions have dielectric constants ~2.7 and highland regions have values of ~2.4. A map of the dielectric constant shows that the various regions correlate well with 70 cm radar data. Using a facet model, it is shown that the observed variations around Crisium cannot be accounted for by roughness at very large scales. Previous estimates of lunar rms surface slope are used to provide absolute measurements of the dielectric constant. For negligible diffusion of the emission by wavelength-scale structure at the surface, the values of the dielectric constant corrected for roughness are ~2.7 for Mare Crisium and ~2.5 for the surrounding highlands. These variations could be explained by near-surface density changes (mare density ~1.52 gcm^-3, highlands density ~1.41 gcm^-3), where the dichotomy is consistent with heavier basaltic materials dominating the mare regolith.

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