The search for electrostatically lofted grains above the Moon with the Lunar Dust Experiment

Jamey R. Szalay, Mihály Horányi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

50 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) on board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission was designed to make in situ dust measurements while orbiting the Moon. Particles with radii a >∼0.3μm were detected as single impacts. LDEX was also capable of measuring the collective signal generated from dust impacts with sizes below its single-particle detection threshold. A putative population of electrostatically lofted grains above the lunar terminator with radii of approximately 0.1μm has been suggested to exist since the Apollo era. LDEX performed the first search with an in situ dust detector for such a population. Here we present the results of the LDEX observations taken over the lunar terminator and report that within LDEX's detection limits, we found no evidence of electrostatically lofted grains in the altitude range of 3-250km above the lunar terminator. Key Points The first in situ search for lofted lunar terminator dust was performed The first in situ upper bound for this population is estimated as 100m-3 Without a height dependence, no evidence for this putative population was found.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)5141-5146
Number of pages6
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume42
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 16 2015
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geophysics
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Keywords

  • Dust
  • Exospheres
  • Moon

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