Planetary and figure-figure effects on the moon's rotational motion

An accurate theory of the rotation of the Moon has been constructed by numerical integration. All direct perturbations on the Moon's rotational motion have been analysed. The requirements of the current observational accuracy are such that some improvements had to be added to the theoretical models. First, the gravitational figure of the Moon has been developed up to the fifth degree harmonics. Second, mutual potential effects between the figure of the Moon and the figure of the Earth have been expanded farther up. The direct action of planets must be taken into account, its effects being very small but not always negligible. The physical librations resulting of planetary effects and Earth-Moon figure-figure interactions are presented in this paper.     

On the “rotational angular momentum” of the oceans and the corresponding polar motion

Periodic polar motions caused by ocean tides are predicted. In the Liouville equations for rotational motion the complete excitation functions for the ocean tides have to be used. This does not depend on the fact that hydrodynamical ocean tide models do not consider the centrifugal acceleration. The observable polar motion of the Celestial Ephemeris Pole CEP (more exactly: the terrestrial location of the CEP) is tabulated for the ten ocean tides M₂, S₂, N₂, K₁, O₁, P₁, M f, M f′, M m, Ssa. Typical amplitudes for the largest ocean tides are 0.4 milliarcseconds. This is within the reach of geodetic VLBI and SLR observations.     

今后几年的月球探测和月球科学

近年来月球探测已经进入了一个全新的时代。特别是 1 990年以来 ,多个月球探测计划已经被成功实现 ,而且另外还有多个探测计划也在准备当中 ,并将在未来的几年内发射升空。在这种背景之下 ,中国的航天机构和有关的科学家也开始积极酝酿和开发自己的月球探测计划。这些月球探测计划将利用卫星上搭载的各种仪器探测和测量月球的地质和地理特性、化学成分和矿物组成、月球物理学特征以及包含地球大气在内的地月空间环境和行星际空间环境 ;进一步研究月球的起源和演化 ,探明月面环境 ,研究太阳等离子体物理 ,提供月面天文台和月面长期科研基地的候选地址 ,调查月球上的可利用资源 ,为将来开发月球提供充实的背景资料。参与新一轮的月球探测同样也为中国天文学研究带来了新的机会。     

Researches in China on the Effects of Tides on the Earth Rotation

In this paper the tidal phenomena on the Earth are concisely specified, including solid tides, ocean tides and atmospheric tides due to the luni-solar tide-generating force, and the Earth pole tide due to the motion of the Earth's rotation axis (polar motion); as well as their effects on the Earth rotation. The outcomes of scientific researches of Chinese astronomers on these topics are described in some detail. These researches deal with the mechanisms responsible for tidal effects on the earth rotation, and on the measurements of the Earth rotation parameters. Finally, the effects discovered by Chinese researchers on the measurements of the period and change in period of pulsars are discussed. These effects are very small in magnitude but not negligible.     

A global model of the internal magnetic field of the Moon based on Lunar Prospector magnetometer observations

A preliminary model of the internal magnetic field of the Moon is developed using a novel, correlative technique on the low-altitude Lunar Prospector magnetic field observations. Subsequent to the removal of a simple model of the external field, an internal dipole model is developed for each pole-to-pole half-orbit. This internal dipole model exploits Lunar Prospector's orbit geometry and incorporates radial and theta vector component data from immediately adjacent passes into the model. These adjacent passes are closely separated in space and time and are thus characteristic of a particular lunar regime (wake, solar wind, magnetotail, magnetosheath) or regimes. Each dipole model thus represents the correlative parts of three adjacent passes, and provides an analytic means of continuing the data to a constant surface of 30 km above the mean lunar radius. The altitude-normalized radial field from the wake and tail regimes is used to build a model in which 99.2% of the 360 by 360 bins covering the lunar surface are filled. This global model of the radial magnetic field is used to construct a degree 178 spherical harmonic model of the field via the Driscoll and Healy sampling theorem. Terms below about degree 150 are robust, and polar regions are considered to be the least reliable. The model resolves additional detail in the low magnetic field regions of the Imbrium and Orientale basins, and also in the four anomaly clusters antipodal to the large lunar basins. The model will be of use in understanding the sources of the internal field, and as a first step in modeling the interaction of the internal field with the solar wind.     

Direct perturbations of the planets on the Moon's motion: Results and comparisons

Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy - The aim of this paper is to present the principal features of a new evaluation of the direct perturbations of the planets on the motion of the Moon....     

Comments about the direct perturbations of Venus and Mars on the Moon's motion

In a previous paper (Standaert, 1980) we have described an algorithm to compute the direct perturbation of the planets on the Moon's motion. A short summary of this algorithm is presented in Section 2 of this paper. Our first results permit us to present some complements and comments about these computations.The algorithm is based upon the Lie transform method and is implemented using Chapront's ELP as solution of the main problem with the partial derivatives of Henrard's Semi-Analytical Lunar Ephemeris (SALE), and Bretagnon's mean Keplerian orbit.An analysis of truncation errors in intermediate results is presented including the resonance effects. The final accuracy of the solution is intended to be about 0.0005 for terms of period up to 2000 yr in the case of Venus and up to 5000 yr in the case of Mars.The effects of second-order terms in the masses are investigated. Only those depending upon the second derivatives of the mean motions are found to be significant to the given accuracy and are included.Proceedings of the Conference on Analytical Methods and Ephemerides: Theory and Observations of the Moon and Planets. Facultés universitaires Notre Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium, 28–31 July, 1980.     

Lunar atmospheric H2 detections by the LAMP UV spectrograph on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

We report on the detection of H₂ as seen in our analysis of twilight observations of the lunar atmosphere observed by the LAMP instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Using a large amount of data collected on the lunar atmosphere between September 2009 and March 2013, we have detected and identified, the presence of H₂ in the native lunar atmosphere, for the first time. We derive a surface density for H₂ of 1.2 ± 0.4 × 10³ cm⁻³ at 120 K. This is about 10 times smaller than originally predicted, and several times smaller than previous upper limits from the Apollo era data.     

Mechanisms for incorporation of hydrogen in and on terrestrial planetary surfaces

Storage of hydrogen atoms in or on a planetary surface can take place via several different mechanisms. If the hydrogen atom reacts to form a hydroxyl (OH) group or water molecule, an absorption band near 3 μm will be present. Many possible mechanisms for sequestering atomic hydrogen are discussed: internal hydrogen in the form of non-structural OH and H₂O in nominally-anhydrous minerals, structural OH in minerals, structural H₂O in minerals, H₂O in fluid inclusions, and OH and H₂O in glasses; bulk H₂O as either liquid water or ice; and surficial hydrogen that is either physisorbed as H₂O, chemisorbed as an H₂O surface complex, or chemically-bound as an OH group on surface terminal sites and grain boundary regions. Understanding the spectroscopic distinctions among these various phenomena is of critical importance in constraining both the evolution of planetary interiors and the cycling of water on planetary surfaces. Proper interpretation of 3-μm bands in reflectance spectra is shown to depend upon the relative contributions from surficial vs. interior hydrogen, which vary with effective surface area (i.e., the grain size and surface roughness) and the volume sampled by the spectrometer.     

Charging and motion of dust grains near the terminator of the moon

We discuss the formation of strong local electric fields near minicraters or hills in the vicinity of the terminator. Electrons, having large thermal velocity compared to the solar wind speed can easily penetrate into the shadowed part of a minicrater. At the same time only protons with velocities much higher than their thermal speed can reach such regions. This results in the formation of a strong local negative potential whose magnitude depends on the steepness of the shadowed slope of the minicrater. The extremely small conductivity of the lunar regolith at the shadowed side of the crater prevents any significant electric discharge and thus supports the formation of a strong potential difference at scales much smaller than the Debye radius. Our estimates show that the created local electric fields are sufficiently strong enough to elevate dust grains with the sizes of the order of above the surface. The suggested mechanism is efficient only after sunset rather close to the terminator. Far away from the terminator at the dark side the fluxes of charged particles hitting the surface are so small that the process of dust elevation becomes too weak.     

Detection of sporadic impact flashes on the Moon: Implications for the luminous efficiency of hypervelocity impacts and derived terrestrial impact rates

We present the first redundant detection of sporadic impact flashes on the Moon from a systematic survey performed between 2001 and 2004. Our wide-field lunar monitoring allows us to estimate the impact rate of large meteoroids on the Moon as a function of the luminous energy received on Earth. It also shows that some historical well-documented mysterious lunar events fit in a clear impact context. Using these data and traditional values of the luminous efficiency for this kind of event we obtain that the impact rate on Earth of large meteoroids (0.1-10 m) would be at least one order of magnitude larger than currently thought. This discrepancy indicates that the luminous efficiency of the hypervelocity impacts is higher than 10⁻², much larger than the common belief, or the latest impact fluxes are somewhat too low, or, most likely, a combination of both. Our nominal analysis implies that on Earth, collisions of bodies with masses larger than 1 kg can be as frequent as 80,000 per year and blasts larger than 15-kton could be as frequent as one per year, but this is highly dependent on the exact choice of the luminous efficiency value. As a direct application of our results, we expect that the impact flash of the SMART-1 spacecraft should be detectable from Earth with medium-sized telescopes.     

Comment on the paper “Fast tidal cycling and the origin of life” by Richard Lathe

We show that the fast tidal cycling postulated by Lathe [Lathe, R., 2004. Icarus 168, 18-22] is not a plausible mechanism to explain the origin of life on Earth about 3.9 Ga ago. The value of LOD at this remote epoch was probably comprised between 15 to 17 h, and the Earth-Moon distance was only about 20% smaller than nowadays, implying that the tidal frequencies and amplitudes were not so dramatically different from the present ones as stated in Lathe's paper.     

On the effect of the mantle elasticity on the earth's rotation

Starting from the Hamiltonian model for a solid Earth with an elastic mantle previously developped by the authors, analytical expressions are derived which give the nutation series corresponding to the plane perpendicular to the angular momentum vector, to the plane perpendicular to the rotational axis and to the equator of figure, as well as the series that give the polar motion. The effects of the different perturbations — solid Earth, centrifugal and tidal potentials — are calculated separately. The corrections due to the elasticity of the mantle, which mostly correspond to the Oppolzer terms, are calculated with an accuracy of 10^–6 arc sec., given that the intrinsic observational accuracy has reached 0.01 mas.     

A half-century of terrestrial analog studies: From craters on the Moon to searching for life on Mars

Terrestrial analogs to the Moon and Mars have been used to advance knowledge in planetary science for over a half-century. They are useful in studies of comparative geology of the terrestrial planets and rocky moons, in astronaut training and testing of exploration technologies, and in developing hypotheses and exploration strategies in astrobiology. In fact, the use of terrestrial analogs can be traced back to the origins of comparative geology and astrobiology, and to the early phases of the Apollo astronaut program. Terrestrial analog studies feature prominently throughout the history of both NASA and the USGS’ Astrogeology Research Program. In light of current international plans for a return missions to the Moon, and eventually to send sample return and manned missions to Mars, as well as the recent creation of various analog research and development programs, this historical perspective is timely.     

Fast tidal cycling and the origin of life

Replicating prebiotic polymers are thought to predate the emergence of true life-forms. The initial mode of replication, a prerequisite for Darwinian selection, is unknown, but demands an explanation based on local physicochemistry. Dual consideration of the conditions of the early terrestrial surface, with the unusual physicochemical properties of nucleic acids like DNA, could explain the emergence of nucleic acids as key biomolecules. The early impact that produced the Moon, and fast terrestrial rotation, subjected coastal areas 3.9 Ga ago to rapid tidal flooding (dilution) and drying (concentration), with a likely periodicity in the range of 2-6 h, and could have provided a driving force for cyclic replication of early biomolecules. Such a mechanism applies only to molecules capable of association/polymerization at high salt concentration, and of dissociation at low salinity. Nucleic acids meet these criteria. It is suggested that tidal cycling, resembling the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) mechanism, could only replicate and amplify DNA-like polymers. This mechanism suggests constraints on the evolution of extra-terrestrial life.     

The transition from complex crater to peak-ring basin on the Moon: New observations from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument

Impact craters on planetary bodies transition with increasing size from simple, to complex, to peak-ring basins and finally to multi-ring basins. Important to understanding the relationship between complex craters with central peaks and multi-ring basins is the analysis of protobasins (exhibiting a rim crest and interior ring plus a central peak) and peak-ring basins (exhibiting a rim crest and an interior ring). New data have permitted improved portrayal and classification of these transitional features on the Moon. We used new 128 pixel/degree gridded topographic data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, combined with image mosaics, to conduct a survey of craters >50 km in diameter on the Moon and to update the existing catalogs of lunar peak-ring basins and protobasins. Our updated catalog includes 17 peak-ring basins (rim-crest diameters range from 207 km to 582 km, geometric mean = 343 km) and 3 protobasins (137-170 km, geometric mean = 157 km). Several basins inferred to be multi-ring basins in prior studies (Apollo, Moscoviense, Grimaldi, Freundlich-Sharonov, Coulomb-Sarton, and Korolev) are now classified as peak-ring basins due to their similarities with lunar peak-ring basin morphologies and absence of definitive topographic ring structures greater than two in number. We also include in our catalog 23 craters exhibiting small ring-like clusters of peaks (50-205 km, geometric mean = 81 km); one (Humboldt) exhibits a rim-crest diameter and an interior morphology that may be uniquely transitional to the process of forming peak rings. A power-law fit to ring diameters (D_ring) and rim-crest diameters (D_r) of peak-ring basins on the Moon [D_ring = 0.14 ± 0.10(D_r)^1.21±0.13] reveals a trend that is very similar to a power-law fit to peak-ring basin diameters on Mercury [D_ring = 0.25 ± 0.14(D_rim)^1.13±0.10] [Baker, D.M.H. et al. [2011]. Planet. Space Sci., in press]. Plots of ring/rim-crest ratios versus rim-crest diameters for peak-ring basins and protobasins on the Moon also reveal a continuous, nonlinear trend that is similar to trends observed for Mercury and Venus and suggest that protobasins and peak-ring basins are parts of a continuum of basin morphologies. The surface density of peak-ring basins on the Moon (4.5 × 10⁻⁷ per km²) is a factor of two less than Mercury (9.9 × 10⁻⁷ per km²), which may be a function of their widely different mean impact velocities (19.4 km/s and 42.5 km/s, respectively) and differences in peak-ring basin onset diameters. New calculations of the onset diameter for peak-ring basins on the Moon and the terrestrial planets re-affirm previous analyses that the Moon has the largest onset diameter for peak-ring basins in the inner Solar System. Comparisons of the predictions of models for the formation of peak-ring basins with the characteristics of the new basin catalog for the Moon suggest that formation and modification of an interior melt cavity and nonlinear scaling of impact melt volume with crater diameter provide important controls on the development of peak rings. In particular, a power-law model of growth of an interior melt cavity with increasing crater diameter is consistent with power-law fits to the peak-ring basin data for the Moon and Mercury. We suggest that the relationship between the depth of melting and depth of the transient cavity offers a plausible control on the onset diameter and subsequent development of peak-ring basins and also multi-ring basins, which is consistent with both planetary gravitational acceleration and mean impact velocity being important in determining the onset of basin morphological forms on the terrestrial planets.     

The statistical effects of galactic tides on the Oort cloud

This report is a comment on two papers by Matese and Whitman (1989, 1992). We discuss here the applicability of uniform probability densities for the orbital parameters of the Oort cloud comets.     

Report of the IAU/IAG/COSPAR working group on cartographic coordinates and rotational elements of the planets and satellites: 1991

Every three years the IAU/IAG/COSPAR Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Satellites revises tables giving the directions of the north poles of rotation and the prime meridians of the planets and satellites. Also presented are revised tables giving their sizes and shapes.     

The Electrostatic Lunar Dust Analyzer (ELDA) for the detection and trajectory measurement of slow-moving dust particles from the lunar surface

Micron and submicron-sized dust particles can be lifted from the lunar surface due to continual micrometeoroid bombardment and electrostatic charging. The characteristics of these dust populations are of scientific interest and engineering importance for the design of future equipment to operate on the lunar surface. The mobilized grains are expected to have a low velocity, which makes their detection difficult by traditional methods that are based on momentum transfer or impact energy. We describe a newly developed instrument concept, the Electrostatic Lunar Dust Analyzer (ELDA), which utilizes the charge on the dust for detection and analysis. ELDA consists of an array of wire electrodes combined with an electrostatic deflection field region, and measures the mass, charge, and velocity vector of individual dust grains. The first basic prototype of the ELDA instrument has been constructed, tested and characterized in the laboratory. The instrument is set up to measure over a velocity range 1–100 m/s and is sensitive to particles from an approximate mass range from 2×10⁻¹⁶ to 10⁻¹¹ kg, depending on the charge state and velocity.     

Possible relations between the rotational axis of the Earth's inner core and the magnetic dipole axis

The geomagnetic field is maintained by amagnetohydrodynamic dynamo process within the liquid outer core. The distribution of the associated electric currents is modified if the outer core is bounded by electrically conducting material. Then, eddy currents and the related magnetic fields are generated within these regions. In particular, the relative rigid rotation of the inner core produces a secondary magnetic field, which is superimposed on the dynamo field. The angle between the dipole axis of the total field and the rotational axis of the inner core is an important quantity needed for the theory of polar motion of the Earth. This angle is investigated for a broad spectrum of angular velocities of the inner core. To simplify the mathematical procedure, we model the dynamo field using an axisymmetric field generated by a system of electric currents within the outer core. The conductivity of the mantle is neglected. We find that the position of the dipole axis depends on the angular velocity of the inner core as well as on the distribution of the current system within the outer core. Coincidence of both axes can be reached if the angular velocity is high enough and if the current system is concentrated within a thin sheet near the outer core-inner core boundary.