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Register a new userEarthshine on a Young Moon: Explaining the Lunar Farside Highlands
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The lunar farside highlands problem refers to the curious and unexplained fact that the farside lunar crust is thicker, on average, than the nearside crust. Here we recognize the crucial influence of Earthshine, and propose that it naturally explains this hemispheric dichotomy. Since the accreting Moon rapidly achieved synchronous rotation, a surface and atmospheric thermal gradient was imposed by the proximity of the hot, post-Giant-Impact Earth. This gradient guided condensation of atmospheric and accreting material, preferentially depositing crust-forming refractories on the cooler farside, resulting in a primordial bulk chemical inhomogeneity that seeded the crustal asymmetry. Our model provides a causal solution to the lunar highlands problem: the thermal gradient created by Earthshine produced the chemical gradient responsible for the crust thickness dichotomy that defines the lunar highlands.
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We present a study on the relationship between the ratio of the depth of a crater to its diameter and the diameter for lunar craters both on the maria and on the highlands. We consider craters younger than 1.1 billion years in age, i.e. of Copernican period. The aim of this work is to improve our understanding of such relationships based on our new estimates of the craterss depth and diameter. Previous studies considered similar relationships for much older craters (up to 3.2 billion years). We calculated the depths of craters with diameters from 10 to 100 km based on the altitude profiles derived from data obtained by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The ratio h/D of the depth h of a crater to its diameter D can diverge by up to a factor of two for craters with almost the same diameters. The linear and power approximations (regressions) of the dependence of h/D on D were made for simple and complex Copernican craters selected from the data from Mazrouei et al. (2019) and Losiak et al. (2015). For the separation of highland craters into two groups based only on their dependences of h/D on D, at D<18 km these are mostly simple craters, although some complex craters can have diameters D>16 km. Depths of mare craters with D<14 km are greater than 0.15D. Following Pikes (1981) classification, we group mare craters of D<15 km as simple craters. Mare craters with 15<D<18 km fit both approximation curves for simple and complex craters. Depths of mare craters with D>18 km are in a better agreement with the approximation curve of h/D vs. D for complex craters than for simple craters. At the same diameter, mare craters are deeper than highland craters at a diameter smaller than 30-40 km. For greater diameters, highland craters are deeper.
FARSIDE (Farside Array for Radio Science Investigations of the Dark ages and Exoplanets) is a Probe-class concept to place a low radio frequency interferometric array on the farside of the Moon. A NASA-funded design study, focused on the instrument, a deployment rover, the lander and base station, delivered an architecture broadly consistent with the requirements for a Probe mission. This notional architecture consists of 128 dual polarization antennas deployed across a 10 km area by a rover, and tethered to a base station for central processing, power and data transmission to the Lunar Gateway. FARSIDE would provide the capability to image the entire sky each minute in 1400 channels spanning frequencies from 100 kHz to 40 MHz, extending down two orders of magnitude below bands accessible to ground-based radio astronomy. The lunar farside can simultaneously provide isolation from terrestrial radio frequency interference, auroral kilometric radiation, and plasma noise from the solar wind. This would enable near-continuous monitoring of the nearest stellar systems in the search for the radio signatures of coronal mass ejections and energetic particle events, and would also detect the magnetospheres for the nearest candidate habitable exoplanets. Simultaneously, FARSIDE would be used to characterize similar activity in our own solar system, from the Sun to the outer planets, including the hypothetical Planet Nine. Through precision calibration via an orbiting beacon, and exquisite foreground characterization, FARSIDE would also measure the Dark Ages global 21-cm signal at redshifts z=50-100. The unique observational window offered by FARSIDE would enable an abundance of additional science ranging from sounding of the lunar subsurface to characterization of the interstellar medium in the solar system neighborhood.
One of the last unexplored windows to the cosmos, the Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn, can be opened using a simple low frequency radio telescope from the stable, quiet lunar farside to measure the Global 21-cm spectrum. This frontier remains an enormous gap in our knowledge of the Universe. Standard models of physics and cosmology are untested during this critical epoch. The messenger of information about this period is the 1420 MHz (21-cm) radiation from the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, Doppler-shifted to low radio astronomy frequencies by the expansion of the Universe. The Global 21-cm spectrum uniquely probes the cosmological model during the Dark Ages plus the evolving astrophysics during Cosmic Dawn, yielding constraints on the first stars, on accreting black holes, and on exotic physics such as dark matter-baryon interactions. A single low frequency radio telescope can measure the Global spectrum between ~10-110 MHz because of the ubiquity of neutral hydrogen. Precise characterizations of the telescope and its surroundings are required to detect this weak, isotropic emission of hydrogen amidst the bright foreground Galactic radiation. We describe how two antennas will permit observations over the full frequency band: a pair of orthogonal wire antennas and a 0.3-m$^3$ patch antenna. A four-channel correlation spectropolarimeter forms the core of the detector electronics. Technology challenges include advanced calibration techniques to disentangle covariances between a bright foreground and a weak 21-cm signal, using techniques similar to those for the CMB, thermal management for temperature swings of >250C, and efficient power to allow operations through a two-week lunar night. This simple telescope sets the stage for a lunar farside interferometric array to measure the Dark Ages power spectrum.
An array of low-frequency dipole antennas on the lunar farside surface will probe a unique, unexplored epoch in the early Universe called the Dark Ages. It begins at Recombination when neutral hydrogen atoms formed, first revealed by the cosmic microwave background. This epoch is free of stars and astrophysics, so it is ideal to investigate high energy particle processes including dark matter, early Dark Energy, neutrinos, and cosmic strings. A NASA-funded study investigated the design of the instrument and the deployment strategy from a lander of 128 pairs of antenna dipoles across a 10 kmx10 km area on the lunar surface. The antenna nodes are tethered to the lander for central data processing, power, and data transmission to a relay satellite. The array, named FARSIDE, would provide the capability to image the entire sky in 1400 channels spanning frequencies from 100 kHz to 40 MHz, extending down two orders of magnitude below bands accessible to ground-based radio astronomy. The lunar farside can simultaneously provide isolation from terrestrial radio frequency interference, the Earths auroral kilometric radiation, and plasma noise from the solar wind. It is thus the only location within the inner solar system from which sky noise limited observations can be carried out at sub-MHz frequencies. Through precision calibration via an orbiting beacon and exquisite foreground characterization, the farside array would measure the Dark Ages global 21-cm signal at redshifts z~35-200. It will also be a pathfinder for a larger 21-cm power spectrum instrument by carefully measuring the foreground with high dynamic range.
This paper reviews improved calibration methods for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector. We cross calibrated the set of LEND observations and models of its detectors physical geometry and composition against the McKinney Apollo 17 era measured neutron flux, Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer epithermal neutron observations, Earth based Galactic Cosmic Ray observations and altitude dependent models of the Moon neutron emission flux. Our neutron transport modeling of the LEND system with the Geant4 software package allows us to fully decompose the varying contributions of lunar, spacecraft and instrument dependent sources of neutrons and charged particles during the LEND mission. With this improved calibration, we can now fully predict every observation from the eight helium 3 detectors and the expected total and partial count rates of neutrons and charged particles for the entirety of LEND now ten plus year observation campaign at the Moon. The study has resulted in an improved calibration for all detectors. The high spatial resolution of LEND collimated and uncollimated sensors are illustrated using the neutron suppression region associated with the south polar Cabeus permanent shadowed region.
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