Journal ArticleDOI
Improved Views of the Moon in the Early Twenty First Century: A Review
Hongwei Yang,Wenjin Zhao +1 more
TLDR
A review of the most significant advances in our understanding of lunar geoscience, including the assessment of water ice at the poles, the detection of new elements and minerals relating to exposed interior materials, and the calculation of highly accurate gravity models, is presented in this article.Abstract:
The twenty first century was an exciting epoch in planetary exploration, when a large number of lunar scientific achievements were accomplished. New missions in the first decade of the twenty first century have herald a new and exciting phase in lunar exploration, including LRO, LCROSS, the dual GRAIL orbiters, Kaguya, Chandrayaan 1, and the Chang’e series. Here we review the most significant advances in our understanding of lunar geoscience, including the assessment of water ice at lunar poles, the detection of new elements and minerals relating to exposed interior materials, the calculation of highly accurate gravity models, and the detection of subsurface interfaces probably related to basaltic strata formed in distinct episodes. In this paper we emphasize the importance of integrated approaches to the analysis of these large yield of new lunar data, through comparison and integration. By integrating a range of diverse technologies and approaches, this paper reviews new understanding of lunar processes, including the confirmation of the presence of water ice at the poles, the interactions between solar wind and surface oxides, and an improved model of lunar interior structures.read more
Citations
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Mineral Maps of the Moon
TL;DR: In this article, the distribution of plagioclase, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxenes and olivine on the Moon were derived from radiative transfer analysis of 400,000 Clementine UVVIS spectra.
Journal ArticleDOI
Thermo-chemical constraints on the lunar bulk composition and the structure of a three-layer mantle
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the lunar bulk composition and the composition of a three-layer mantle based on a joint inversion of lunar mass and moment of inertia, and the mantle seismic velocity profiles in combination with Gibbs free energy minimization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Molecular dynamics estimates for the thermodynamic properties of the Fe–S liquid cores of the Moon, Io, Europa, and Ganymede
O. L. Kuskov,D. K. Belashchenko +1 more
TL;DR: Weber et al. as mentioned in this paper performed a molecular dynamics simulation for the physical and chemical properties of solid and liquid Fe-S solutions using the embedded atom model (EAM) potential as applied to the internal structure of the Moon, Io, Europa, and Ganymede under the assumption that the satellites' cores can be described by a two-component iron-sulfur system.
Lunar radar sounder observations of subsurface layers under the nearside maria of the Moon
Atsushi Kumamoto,Takayuki Ono,Hiromu Nakagawa,Yasushi Yamaguchi,Shoko Oshigami,Atsushi Yamaji,T. Kobayashi,Yoshiya Kasahara,Hiroshi Oya +8 more
TL;DR: In this paper, radar sounding from the Kaguya spacecraft has revealed subsurface layers at an apparent depth of several hundred meters in nearside maria, indicating a tectonic quiescence between 3.55 and 2.84 billion years ago; mare ridges were formed subsequently.
Journal ArticleDOI
Geochemical Constraints on the Cold and Hot Models of the Moon’s Interior: 2—Three-Layer Mantle
TL;DR: In this paper, an internal consistent model of the thermal state, chemical composition and mineralogy of the three-layer mantle of the Moon is constructed based on the joint inversion of gravity, seismic and petrological-geochemical data within the Na2O-TiO2-CaO-FeO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2 system.
References
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Book
Lunar sourcebook : a user's guide to the moon
TL;DR: The present status of lunar knowledge based on U.S. and USSR lunar missions and the continuing analysis of lunar samples and data is reviewed in this paper, with particular attention given to exploration, samples, and recent concepts of the moon; the lunar environment; lunar surface processes; the moon minerals, rocks, and regolith; chemical elements in the moon, physical properties of the lunar surface; and global and regional data about the moon.
Journal ArticleDOI
Major lunar crustal terranes: Surface expressions and crust‐mantle origins
TL;DR: In this paper, global geochemical information derived from Clementine multispectral data and Lunar Prospector gamma-ray data reveals at least three distinct provinces whose geochemistry and petrologic history make them geologically unique: (1) the Procellarum KREEP Terrane (PKT), (2) the Feldspathic High-lands terrane (FHT), and (3) the South Pole-Aitken Terane (SPAT).
Journal ArticleDOI
The Crust of the Moon as Seen by GRAIL
Mark A. Wieczorek,Gregory A. Neumann,Francis Nimmo,Walter S. Kiefer,G. Jeffrey Taylor,H. Jay Melosh,Roger J. Phillips,Sean C. Solomon,Sean C. Solomon,Jeffrey C. Andrews-Hanna,Sami W. Asmar,A. Konopliv,Frank G. Lemoine,David E. Smith,Michael M. Watkins,James G. Williams,Maria T. Zuber +16 more
TL;DR: In this article, high-resolution gravity data obtained from the dual Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft show that the bulk density of the Moon's highlands crust is 2550 kilograms per cubic meter, substantially lower than generally assumed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Detection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta Plume
Anthony Colaprete,Peter H. Schultz,Jennifer L. Heldmann,Diane H. Wooden,Mark Shirley,Kimberly Ennico,Brendan Hermalyn,William Marshall,William Marshall,Antonio J. Ricco,Richard C. Elphic,David Goldstein,D. Summy,G. D. Bart,Erik Asphaug,Don Korycansky,David Landis,Luke Sollitt +17 more
TL;DR: The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission was designed to provide direct evidence that water ice may be presented in permanently shadowed craters of the Moon, and spectral bands of a number of other volatile compounds were observed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Character and Spatial Distribution of OH/H2O on the Surface of the Moon Seen by M3 on Chandrayaan-1
Carle M. Pieters,J. N. Goswami,J. N. Goswami,Roger N. Clark,M. Annadurai,Joseph W. Boardman,Bonnie J. Buratti,J. P. Combe,M. D. Dyar,Robert O. Green,James W. Head,Charles A. Hibbitts,Michael D. Hicks,Peter J. Isaacson,Rachel L. Klima,Georgiana Y. Kramer,S. Kumar,E. Livo,S. Lundeen,Erick Malaret,T. B. McCord,John F. Mustard,J. Nettles,Noah E. Petro,C. Runyon,M. Staid,Jessica M. Sunshine,Lawrence A. Taylor,Stefanie Tompkins,P. Varanasi +29 more
TL;DR: Analysis of recent infrared mapping by Chandrayaan-1 and Deep Impact, and reexamining Cassini data obtained during its early flyby of the Moon, Pieters et al. reveal a noticeable absorption signal for H2O and OH across much of the surface, implying that solar wind is depositing and/or somehow forming water and OH in minerals near the lunar surface, and that this trapped water is dynamic.