Coronagraphic observations of the lunar sodium exosphere January–June, 2017

Killen, R. M.; Morgan, T. H.; Potter, A. E.; Plymate, C.; Tucker, R. A.; Johnson, Jamil D.

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2019.02.027

Cited by 13 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Increase of the intensity of Na lines with decreasing of latitude has been detected during observations at position angles of 0, 30, and 60 degrees. Such results are in agreement with previous observations of Na in the lunar exosphere [5]. Observations at position angles of 300 and 330 degrees cannot be used for estimated of line-of-sight column densities of Na atoms because at these position angles a part of the line-of-sight is shadowed by the Moon.…”

Section: Observations and Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Lunar exosphere is a weak extended object which is not observed in the continuum, but reveals an emission in lines of species as Na, K, Li, Ba, Ca, Mn, Ti, etc. Earth-based observations of the lunar exosphere make use different techniques including coronographic imaging [3,5], Fabry-Pérot spectroscopy [7,8], and slit spectroscopy [1,10,12]. The last is more suitable for simultaneously measuring lines of several species in wide spectral range.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Telescope pointing software for slit spectroscopy of the lunar exosphere

Velikodsky

Berezhnoy

Velichko

et al. 2020

AstSR

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Section: Observations and Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telescope pointing software for slit spectroscopy of the lunar exosphere

Velikodsky

Berezhnoy

Velichko

et al. 2020

AstSR

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“…No correlation is evident between the SMS brightness and the solar wind flow pressure, the plasma temperature, the density or the speed of the solar wind, the solar UV photon flux or the 11-year solar cycle (as evidenced by the F10.7 flux). Several studies of the lunar Na exosphere have reported variability indicative of episodic drivers (e.g., Killen et al, 2019;Sprague et al, 2012), a characteristic of the moon's solar wind environment or solar irradiance at high energies. The current study found no apparent correlation with these drivers, in agreement with previous SMS studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For gibbous and full moon conditions, the scattered light poses significant challenges. Imaging of the exosphere is still possible in these phases, but the requisite stray light rejection has only been achieved by either adapting solar coronagraphs or by thermally‐regulating the ultra‐narrowband 1.5 Å filters to keep them on‐band (Killen et al., 2019; Potter & Morgan, 1998). Alternatively, a natural coronagraph occurs when the full moon experiences an eclipse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐Term Observations and Physical Processes in the Moon's Extended Sodium Tail

et al. 2021

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The history of astronomy book by Arthur Berry (1898) set the foundation for the explosion of knowledge about the cosmos that would come in the twentieth century. Towards the end of his narrative, he describes possible new lunar science dealing with the surface, and then concludes: "The question of a lunar atmosphere is more difficult: if there is air its density must be very small, some hundredfold less than that of our atmosphere at the surface of the earth; but with this restriction there seems to be no bar to the existence of a lunar atmosphere of considerable extent, and it is difficult to explain certain observations without assuming the existence of some atmosphere." A half-century later, at the dawn of the Space Age, a new history of astronomy by Pannekoek (1961) described how past stellar occultation-by-moon experiments indicated that the lunar atmosphere had to be less than 1/2000th of the density of the Earth's. He then asked:

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“…reported 950 K to 20,000 K near the surface, depending on location and phase. Killen et al (2019 reported 2250 K to 6750 K using a coronagraph that sampled higher altitudes above about 450 km. Their observations and others have reported the exosphere is most extended at high latitudes (e.g., Mendillo et al 1993).…”

Section: Lunar Linewidths and Altitude Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Na and K Mercury and Moon Exospheres

et al. 2022

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Sodium and, in a lesser way, potassium atomic components of surface-bounded exospheres are among the brightest elements that can be observed from the Earth in our Solar System. Both species have been intensively observed around Mercury, the Moon and the Galilean Moons. During the last decade, new observations have been obtained thanks to space missions carrying remote and in situ instrumentation that provide a completely original view of these species in the exospheres of Mercury and the Moon. They challenged our understanding and modelling of these exospheres and opened new directions of research by suggesting the need to better take into account the relationship between the surface-exosphere and the magnetosphere. In this paper, we first review the large set of observations of Mercury and the Moon Sodium and Potassium exospheres. In the second part, we list what it tells us on the sources and sinks of these exospheres focusing in particular on the role of their magnetospheres of these objects and then discuss, in a third section, how these observations help us to understand and identify the key drivers of these exospheres.

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Coronagraphic observations of the lunar sodium exosphere January–June, 2017

Cited by 13 publications

References 27 publications

Telescope pointing software for slit spectroscopy of the lunar exosphere

Telescope pointing software for slit spectroscopy of the lunar exosphere

Long‐Term Observations and Physical Processes in the Moon's Extended Sodium Tail

Comparative Na and K Mercury and Moon Exospheres

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