moon: Chandrayaan-2 orbiter makes discovery of noble gas Argon below Moon’s surface | India News – Rashtra News : Rashtra News
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NEW DELHI: In a significant discovery, a scientific instrument on board Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter has made first-of-its-kind observation of the global distribution of Argon-40, an inert, colourless and odorless element, in the tenuous lunar exosphere of the Moon.
The observations by Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2), a quadrupole mass spectrometer, provide insight on the dynamics of lunar exospheric species as well as on the radiogenic activities in the first few tens of metres below the lunar surface, Isro said on Tuesday. ‘Exosphere’ is the outermost region of the upper atmosphere where constituent atoms and molecules rarely collide and can escape into space.
Noble gases such as Argon-40 serve as important tracers to understand the processes of surface-exosphere interaction. Ar-40 originates from the radioactive disintegration of potassium-40 (K-40) present below the lunar surface. Once formed, it diffuses through the inter-granular space and makes its way up to the lunar exosphere through seepages and faults.
On Earth, Argon, the third-most abundant gas in the atmosphere, is used in a wide range of industrial applications like welding and lighting purposes, in food & drink industry and also in the health sector, where Argon laser is used in the eye treatment.
The CHACE-2 observations provide diurnal and spatial variation of Ar-40 covering the equatorial and mid latitude regions of the Moon. The uniqueness of this result from Chandrayaan-2 mission lies in the fact that although Nasa’s Apollo-17 and LADEE missions had detected the presence of Ar-40 in the lunar exosphere, the measurements were only confined to the near-equatorial region of the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-2 findings of Ar-40 up to the mid-latitude regions play a significant role to bridge the gap in the knowledge of the element’s presence on Moon. The observations reveal that distribution in Ar-40 has significant spatial heterogeneity. There are localised enhancements (termed as Argon bulge) over several regions including the KREEP (potassium (K), rare-earth elements, and phosphorus (P)) and South Pole Aitken terrain.
CHACE-2 is a sequel to CHACE experiment of Chandrayaan-1 mission and also draws heritage from Mars exospheric neutral composition analyser (MENCA) experiment aboard India’s Mars orbiter.
The observations by Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2), a quadrupole mass spectrometer, provide insight on the dynamics of lunar exospheric species as well as on the radiogenic activities in the first few tens of metres below the lunar surface, Isro said on Tuesday. ‘Exosphere’ is the outermost region of the upper atmosphere where constituent atoms and molecules rarely collide and can escape into space.
Noble gases such as Argon-40 serve as important tracers to understand the processes of surface-exosphere interaction. Ar-40 originates from the radioactive disintegration of potassium-40 (K-40) present below the lunar surface. Once formed, it diffuses through the inter-granular space and makes its way up to the lunar exosphere through seepages and faults.
On Earth, Argon, the third-most abundant gas in the atmosphere, is used in a wide range of industrial applications like welding and lighting purposes, in food & drink industry and also in the health sector, where Argon laser is used in the eye treatment.
The CHACE-2 observations provide diurnal and spatial variation of Ar-40 covering the equatorial and mid latitude regions of the Moon. The uniqueness of this result from Chandrayaan-2 mission lies in the fact that although Nasa’s Apollo-17 and LADEE missions had detected the presence of Ar-40 in the lunar exosphere, the measurements were only confined to the near-equatorial region of the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-2 findings of Ar-40 up to the mid-latitude regions play a significant role to bridge the gap in the knowledge of the element’s presence on Moon. The observations reveal that distribution in Ar-40 has significant spatial heterogeneity. There are localised enhancements (termed as Argon bulge) over several regions including the KREEP (potassium (K), rare-earth elements, and phosphorus (P)) and South Pole Aitken terrain.
CHACE-2 is a sequel to CHACE experiment of Chandrayaan-1 mission and also draws heritage from Mars exospheric neutral composition analyser (MENCA) experiment aboard India’s Mars orbiter.
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