Scientists say they have identified the main process that formed the moon's atmosphere and continues to sustain it today. The team reports that the lunar atmosphere is primarily a product of 'impact vaporization.'
Scientists say they have identified the main process that formed the moon's atmosphere and continues to sustain it today. The team reports that the lunar atmosphere is primarily a product of 'impact vaporization.'
In their study, the researchers analyzed samples of lunar soil collected by astronauts during NASA's Apollo missions. Their analysis suggests that over the moon's 4.5-billion-year history its surface has been continuously bombarded, first by massive meteorites, then more recently, by smaller, dust-sized"micrometeoroids." These constant impacts have kicked up the lunar soil, vaporizing certain atoms on contact and lofting the particles into the air.
Nie's co-authors are Nicolas Dauphas, Zhe Zhang, and Timo Hopp at the University of Chicago, and Menelaos Sarantos at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.In 2013, NASA sent an orbiter around the moon to do some detailed atmospheric reconnaissance. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was tasked with remotely gathering information about the moon's thin atmosphere, surface conditions, and any environmental influences on the lunar dust.
"Based on LADEE's data, it seemed both processes are playing a role," Nie says."For instance, it showed that during meteorite showers, you see more atoms in the atmosphere, meaning impacts have an effect. But it also showed that when the moon is shielded from the sun, such as during an eclipse, there are also changes in the atmosphere's atoms, meaning the sun also has an impact. So, the results were not clear or quantitative.
With all that in mind, Nie analyzed the Apollo samples by first crushing the soils into a fine powder, then dissolving the powders in acids to purify and isolate solutions containing potassium and rubidium. She then passed these solutions through a mass spectrometer to measure the various isotopes of both potassium and rubidium in each sample.
"The discovery of such a subtle effect is remarkable, thanks to the innovative idea of combining potassium and rubidium isotope measurements along with careful, quantitative modeling," says Justin Hu, a postdoc who studies lunar soils at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study.
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