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Recent shallow moonquake and impact-triggered boulder falls on the Moon: New insights from the Schrödinger basin
Head, James W.; Kiran Kumar, A. S.; Amitabh +8 more
Shallow moonquakes are thought to be of tectonic origin. However, the geologic structures responsible for these moonquakes are unknown. Here we report sites where moonquakes possibly occurred along young lobate scarps in the Schrödinger basin. Our analysis of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Chandrayaan-1 images revealed four lobate scarps in diff…
Peak-ring structure and kinematics from a multi-disciplinary study of the Schrödinger impact basin
Kramer, Georgiana Y.; Collins, Gareth S.; Kring, David A. +2 more
The Schrödinger basin on the lunar farside is ~320 km in diameter and the best-preserved peak-ring basin of its size in the Earth-Moon system. Here we present spectral and photogeologic analyses of data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on the LRO spacecraf…
Complex explosive volcanic activity on the Moon within Oppenheimer crater
Bell, James F.; Horgan, Briony H. N.; Hayne, Paul O. +5 more
Oppenheimer crater is a floor-fractured crater located within the South Pole-Aitken basin on the Moon, and exhibits more than a dozen localized pyroclastic deposits associated with the fractures. Localized pyroclastic volcanism on the Moon is thought to form as a result of intermittently explosive Vulcanian eruptions under low effusion rates, in c…
On the origin of the ionosphere at the Moon using results from Chandrayaan-1 S band radio occultation experiment and a photochemical model
Choudhary, R. K.; Bhardwaj, Anil; Dhanya, M. B. +2 more
The origin of the Moon's ionosphere has been explored using Chandrayaan-1 radio occultation (RO) measurements and a photochemical model. The electron density near the Moon's surface, obtained on 31 July 2009 (∼300 cm-3), is compared with results from a model which includes production and recombination of 16 ions, solar wind proton charg…
Chandrayaan-2 dual-frequency SAR: Further investigation into lunar water and regolith
Das, Anup; Putrevu, Deepak; Vachhani, J. G. +2 more
The Space Applications Centre (SAC), one of the major centers of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is developing a high resolution, dual-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar as a science payload on Chandrayaan-2, ISRO's second moon mission. With this instrument, ISRO aims to further the ongoing studies of the data from S-band MiniSAR on…
Characteristics of proton velocity distribution functions in the near-lunar wake from Chandrayaan-1/SWIM observations
Barabash, Stas; Holmström, Mats; Futaana, Yoshifumi +5 more
Due to the high absorption of solar wind plasma on the lunar dayside, a large scale wake structure is formed downstream of the Moon. However, recent in-situ observations have revealed the presence of protons in the near-lunar wake (100 km to 200 km from the surface). The solar wind, either directly or after interaction with the lunar surface (incl…
Scattering characteristics and imaging of energetic neutral atoms from the Moon in the terrestrial magnetosheath
Barabash, Stas; Futaana, Yoshifumi; Wieser, Martin +6 more
We study hydrogen energetic neutral atom (ENA) emissions from the lunar surface, when the Moon is inside the terrestrial magnetosheath. The ENAs are generated by neutralization and backscattering of incident protons of solar wind origin. First, we model the effect of the increased ion temperature in the magnetosheath (>10 times larger than that…
Comparison of lunar red spots including the crater copernicus
Ivanov, M.; Korokhin, V.; Kaydash, V. +4 more
The lunar red spots, Helmet, Hansteen Alpha, and the NW quadrant of the crater Copernicus, were selected for a complex comparative investigation of their characteristics measured by the spacecraft Clementine, LRO, and Chandrayaan-1. For the analysis we used the following parameters: the reflectance A(750 nm), color-ratio A(750 nm)/A(415 nm), param…
Geomorphology of Lowell crater region on the Moon
Srivastava, N.; Varatharajan, I.
Surface topography, surface morphology and crater chronology studies have been carried out for the Lowell crater region (occupying ∼198 × 198 km2 in the northwestern quadrant of the Orientale basin) using Kaguya TC-DTM, LRO-WAC data, and Chandrayaan-1 M3-750 nm image, to characterize and date Lowell impact event and to identi…
Observation of Neon at mid and high latitudes in the sunlit lunar exosphere: Results from CHACE aboard MIP/Chandrayaan-1
Bhardwaj, Anil; Sridharan, R.; Thampi, Smitha V. +2 more
The distribution of neutral Neon at the mid and high latitudes in the sunlit lunar exosphere observed by CHandra's Altitudinal Composition Explorer (CHACE) aboard the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the Chandrayaan-1 is reported. The CHACE observation was made when Moon was in the Earth's magnetotail. The upper limits of the surface number density are …