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Lunar horizon glow and the Clementine missionThe Clementine spacecraft is to be launched into Earth orbit in late January for subsequent insertion into lunar orbit in late February, 1994. There, its primary mission is to produce -- over a period of about two months -- a new photographic map of the entire surface of the Moon; this will be done, in a variety of wavelengths and spatial resolutions, in a manner greatly superior to that previously accomplished for the whole Moon. It will then go on to fly by and photograph the asteroid Geographos. A secondary goal that has been accepted for this mission is to take a series of photographs designed to capture images of, and determine the brightness and extent of, the Lunar Horizon Glow (LHG). One form of LHG is caused by the solar stimulation of emission from Na and K atoms in the lunar exosphere. The scale height of this exosphere is of the order of 100 km. There are also brighter LHG components, with much smaller scale heights, that appear to be caused by scattered off of an exospheric lunar dust cloud.
Document ID
19940030972
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Zook, H. A. (NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Potter, A. E. (NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Inst., The Twenty-Fifth Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Part 3: P-Z
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Exploration
Accession Number
94N35478
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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