Extremely high reflection of solar wind protons as neutral hydrogen atoms from regolith in space

Autor:	Wieser, Martin, Barabash, Stas, Futaana, Yoshifumi, Holmström, Mats, Bhardwaj, Anil, Sridharan, R, Dhanya, MB, Wurz, Peter, Schaufelberger, Audrey, Asamura, Kazushi
Rok vydání:	2010
Předmět:	Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Physics - Plasma Physics Physics - Space Physics
Zdroj:	Planetary and Space Science, Volume 57, Issue 14-15, p. 2132-2134, 2009
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
DOI:	10.1016/j.pss.2009.09.012
Popis:	We report on measurements of extremely high reflection rates of solar wind particles from regolith-covered lunar surfaces. Measurements by the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) instrument on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in orbit around the Moon show that up to 20% of the impinging solar wind protons are reflected from the lunar surface back to space as neutral hydrogen atoms. This finding, generally applicable to regolith-covered atmosphereless bodies, invalidates the widely accepted assumption that regolith almost completely absorbs the impinging solar wind. Comment: 2 figures
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.2972 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv