A Spectropolarimetric Maturity Index of Lunar Soil

The lunar soil maturity is the most important parameter of the Moon's surface material. The degree of regolith processing should be taken into account in remote determinations of the chemical and mineralogical surface compositions. However, the possibilities for directly determining the lunar regolith maturity are limited to laboratory studies of the fine fraction and microparticles of samples returned to Earth. In these conditions, the urgency of developing methods for remotely determining the lunar soil maturity increases sharply. The suggested method of using spectropolarimetric data to quantitatively estimate the maturity of the surface material has an advantage that the derived maturity index is determined only by structural parameters of the reflecting layer and is completely free from the effects of chemical and mineralogical surface rock compositions. The reference catalog of spectropolarimetric indices contains values for 92 objects on the Moon's visible hemisphere and includes a wide range of structures with various degrees of maturity of the surface material. We obtained correlations with other maturity indices determined by laboratory and remote sensing techniques and the time scale that represents the correspondence between the spectropolarimetric maturity index and the soil exposure age.