T13 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Ten Years Exploring the Moon

Sunday, 22 September 2019
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 232BC, North Building

TEN YEARS EXPLORING THE MOON WITH THE LRO DIVINER LUNAR RADIOMETER EXPERIMENT

Paper number: T13-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:45 AM – 9:05 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Diviner Lunar Radiometer instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been mapping the Moon on a continuous basis for the last ten years. The Diviner data have revealed the extreme nature of the Moon’s thermal environments, thermophysical properties, and surface composition. Diviner is the first multispectral thermal infrared instrument to globally map an airless body at high spatial and temporal resolution.

Some of Diviner’s key results include:

  1. A complete global map of lunar diurnal and seasonal surface temperature variations at ~500 m spatial resolution
  2. The first measurements of the thermal emission from cryogenic regions of permanent shadow at the lunar poles
  3. A global map of the thermophysical properties of the uppermost centimeters of the lunar regolith
  4. A global map of lunar rock abundance
  5. A global map of the Moon’s bulk silicate mineralogy
  6. An improved understanding of lunar impact chronology during the past ~1 billion years
  7. An improved understanding of the thermal stability of cold-trapped volatiles at the lunar poles
  8. An improved understanding of the angular thermal emission from the lunar surface and the effects of roughness

Diviner’s extensive dataset, which is the second largest in the field of planetary science, represents a cornerstone for thermal infrared studies of the Moon that can be applied to the study of other airless bodies.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 5

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019AM-338932

© Copyright 2019 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.