Impact Ejecta Plumes at the Moon

Edwin A. Bernardoni, Jamey R. Szalay, Mihály Horányi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Lunar Dust Experiment, on-board National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, observed significant enhancements in impact rate measurements of lunar ejecta. These enhancements were attributed to the spacecraft crossing dense ejecta plumes generated by well-timed and well-placed interplanetary meteoroid impacts on the lunar surface. We have used a Monte Carlo approach to implement an initial speed distribution, derived from globally averaged Lunar Dust Experiment observations, in a 3-D dynamical model describing the ballistic motion of ejecta particles. By matching this model to the observed enhancements, we constrained the initial ejecta angular distribution of these plumes. Our results indicate that lunar impact ejecta plumes reaching altitudes exceeding 24 km are far narrower than previously thought, with initial opening half angles of 8°±3°, suggesting that the high-altitude lunar dust cloud may be dominated by reverse plumes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)534-543
Number of pages10
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume46
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 28 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geophysics
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Keywords

  • interplanetary dust
  • meteoroid
  • Moon

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