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Effects of Airless Bodies' Regolith Structures and of the Solar Wind's Properties on the Backscattered Energetic Neutral Atoms Flux

Verkercke, S.; Chaufray, J. -Y.; Leblanc, F. +4 more

The surfaces of airless planetary bodies, such as the Moon or Mercury, are covered with regoliths, which interact with the solar wind. The solar protons can either be absorbed by the surface or neutralized and reflected as hydrogen energetic neutral atoms (ENAs). The ENA flux is thought to depend mostly on the structure of the upper regolith layer…

New Insights into Aristarchus Crater with LRO LAMP Far-ultraviolet Observations

Hendrix, Amanda; Retherford, Kurt; Grava, Cesare +8 more

Aristarchus crater is a Copernican-age impact crater well known for its high-albedo ejecta blanket and nearby flow features rich in pyroclastic materials. The Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) is a far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectrograph (57-197 nm) on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). LAMP data identified Aristarchus crater as having a hi…

The Scientific Value of a Sustained Exploration Program at the Aristarchus Plateau

Glotch, Timothy D.; Li, Shuai; Lucey, Paul G. +13 more

The Aristarchus plateau hosts a diversity of volcanic features, including the largest pyroclastic deposit on the Moon, the largest sinuous rille on the Moon, and intrusive and extrusive examples of evolved, Th-rich silicic lithologies. We provide an overview of previous remote-sensing measurements of the Aristarchus plateau and provide new analyse…