Chandrayaan 3 touched down on August 23rd of 2023: Observations from the lunar regolith and AXS instruments

Haskin, L. A., Helmke, P. A., Blanchard, D. P., Jacobs, J. W. & Telander, K. in Proc. 4th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 1275–1296 (Pergamon Press, 1973).

On August 23rd of 2023, the lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down. It released a rover called Pragyan, which collected data ranging from temperature to seismological measurements over 10 days.

The chemical composition of regolith was studied and found to cover most of the lunar surface. An instrument called the alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS), was deployed 23 times by the rover.

“It’s sort of what we expected to be there based on orbital data, but the ground truth is always really good to get,” says Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe.

The Moon is not the Earth, but the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter reveals that ancient multiring basins on the Moon are dominated by pyroxene

The best model for the origin of the Moon is that the Earth was hit by a large impactor, called Theia, which wiped it out and blasted a large amount of material into the air. The Moon formed quickly because of the scattered material. This impact theory explains why lunar rocks have an isotope composition similar to those on Earth.

Vadawale and his colleagues found that their samples had elevated levels of magnesium. This is suggestive that deep mafic material has been mixed into the regolith.

But one problem with that idea is that the South Pole–Aitken basin seems to be dominated by a mineral called pyroxene, which doesn’t quite fit Pragyan’s data, says Anand. Resolving this will likely require samples to be brought back to Earth.

McGetchin, T. R., Settle, M. & Head, J. W. Radial thickness variation in impact crater ejecta: implications for lunar basin deposits. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 20, 226–236 (1973).

Lemelin, M., Lucey, P. G. & Camon, A. Compositional maps of the lunar polar regions derived from the Kaguya Spectral Profiler and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter data. Planet. There is a science. J. 3, 63 was published in 1982.

Spudis, P. D., Reisse, R. A. & Gillis, J. J. Ancient multiring basins on the Moon revealed by Clementine laser altimetry. Science 257, 1858 and 1849 (1994).

Lunar anorthosites and plagioclase-flotation hypothesis: a possible explanation of the lunar magma ocean in the Orientale Basin

N. P. S., Mithun, and others published their findings. Ground calibration of Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on-board Chandrayaan-2 Pragyaan rover: an empirical approach. There is a planet. Space Sci. 187, 104923 (2020).

Warren, P. H. Lunar anorthosites and the magma-ocean plagioclase-flotation hypotheses: importance of FeO enrichment in the parent magma. Am. Mineral. 75, 46–58 (1990).

Iddings, Cross and Washington are from the same area. A quantitative chemico-mineralogical classification and nomenclature of igneous rocks. J. Geol. 10, 555–690 (1902).

Dygert, N., Lin, J.-F., Marshall, E. W., Kono, Y. & Gardner, J. E. A low viscosity lunar magma ocean forms a stratified anorthitic flotation crust with mafic poor and rich units. Geophys. There is a Res. Lett. 44 was published in 2017).

The thickness of ejecta from the Orientale Basin fromLOLA data has implications. There is a group of organisms called the geophys. Res. Lett. L17201 was released in 2011.

Source: Chandrayaan-3 APXS elemental abundance measurements at lunar high latitude

Global Mapping of lunar refractory elements: multivariate regression vs. machine learning. Icarus 363, 114436 (2021). Chandrayaan-3 Large Area Soft X-ray Spect

The OGip file format is used. https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/ofwg/docs/spectra/ogip_92_007.pdf (2021).

Bhatt, M., Wöhler, C., Grumpe, A., Hasebe, N. & Naito, M. Global mapping of lunar refractory elements: multivariate regression vs. machine learning. Astron. Astrophys. 627, A155 (2019).

Pillai, N. S. et al. The Chandrayaan-2 Large area Soft X-ray Spectrometer has calibration, in-flight performance and first results. Icarus 363, 114436 (2021).

Source: Chandrayaan-3 APXS elemental abundance measurements at lunar high latitude

Order p.h., d.e.p.m. (Res. solid Earth 89,c25-C40)

P. H., Warren and a few other people. Seventh Foray: Whitlockite-rich lithologies, a diopside-bearing troctolitic anorthosite, ferroan anorthosites, and KREEP. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth 88 was published in 1983.

James, O. B. & Flohr, M. K. Subdivision of the Mg-suite noritic rocks into Mg-gabbronorites and Mg-norites. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth is A603–A614.

Shervais, J. W., Taylor, L. A., Laul, J. C. & Smith, M. R. Pristine highland clasts in consortium breccia 14305: petrology and geochemistry. J.geosciences is a science. Res. Solid Earth 89, C25-C40 were published in 1984.

It is possible to use the excel spreadsheet programs to calculate the petrologic norms from the chemical analyses. Zenodo was published on September 5, 2000 and is available at no cost.