Lunar soil record of atmosphere loss over eons

The Moon has a tenuous atmosphere produced by space weathering. The short-lived nature of the atoms surrounding the Moon necessitates continuous replenishment from lunar regolith through mechanisms such as micrometeorite impacts, ion sputtering, and photon-stimulated desorption. Despite advances, pr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science advances 2024-08, Vol.10 (31), p.eadm7074
Main Authors: Nie, Nicole X, Dauphas, Nicolas, Zhang, Zhe J, Hopp, Timo, Sarantos, Menelaos
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Moon has a tenuous atmosphere produced by space weathering. The short-lived nature of the atoms surrounding the Moon necessitates continuous replenishment from lunar regolith through mechanisms such as micrometeorite impacts, ion sputtering, and photon-stimulated desorption. Despite advances, previous remote sensing and space mission data have not conclusively disentangled the contributions of these processes. Using high-precision potassium (K) and rubidium (Rb) isotopic analyses of lunar soils from the Apollo missions, our study sheds light on the lunar surface-atmosphere evolution over billions of years. The observed correlation between K and Rb isotopic ratios (δ Rb = 0.17 δ K) indicates that, over long timescales, micrometeorite impact vaporization is the primary source of atoms in the lunar atmosphere.
ISSN:2375-2548
2375-2548
DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adm7074