Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Lucey, P. Articles by Maurice, S. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Understanding the Lunar Surface and Space-Moon Interactions

¹ University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
² Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
³ University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A.
⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, U.S.A.
⁵ Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
⁶ Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.
⁷ University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.
⁸ Boston University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
⁹ Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
¹⁰ University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
¹¹ Northrop Grumman, Van Nuys, California, U.S.A.
¹² Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France

Correspondence: Corresponding authors e-mail: Paul Lucey <lucey@higp.hawaii.edu> Randy Korotev <korotev@wustl.edu>

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	1. INTRODUCTION

 
The surface of the Moon is a critical boundary that shapes our understanding of the Moon as a whole. All geologic mapping and remote sensing techniques utilize only the outermost portion of the Moon. Before leaving the Moon for study in our laboratories, all lunar samples that have been studied existed at or very near the surface. With the exception of the deeply probing geophysical techniques, our understanding of the interior of the Moon is derived from surficial, but not superficial, information, coupled with boundary of the lunar crust, it is the lower boundary layer of the tenuous lunar atmosphere and constitutes both a source and a sink for atmospheric gases. The surface is also where the Moon interacts with the space environment, causing changes in the physical nature of lunar materials, and provides a laboratory for the study of processes that occur on all airless bodies.

The data obtained remotely by the Galileo, Clementine, and Lunar Prospector missions, as well as data derived from lunar meteorites, have resulted in major changes to our understanding of global distributions of chemistry and rocks. This chapter summarizes the current understanding of this critical interface, the surface of the Moon, in its role as the lower boundary of the lunar atmosphere, the upper boundary of the crust, and the window through which we view, through remote sensing, the composition of the crust and the history of the Moon. In this post-Lunar Prospector time, the view of the Moon has changed, lending new perspectives to lunar samples and lunar processes. But the New View will likely remain in flux as we continue to digest the results from these recent space missions and move forward to a new era of lunar exploration.

Despite the freshness of our perspective, this is an important moment to capture, . . . [Full Text of this Article]