Extremely high reflection of solar wind protons as neutral hydrogen atoms from regolith in space
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
2010-12-15 v1 Plasma Physics
Space Physics
Abstract
We report on measurements of extremely high reflection rates of solar wind particles from regolith-covered lunar surfaces. Measurements by the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) instrument on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in orbit around the Moon show that up to 20% of the impinging solar wind protons are reflected from the lunar surface back to space as neutral hydrogen atoms. This finding, generally applicable to regolith-covered atmosphereless bodies, invalidates the widely accepted assumption that regolith almost completely absorbs the impinging solar wind.
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@article{arxiv.1012.2972,
title = {Extremely high reflection of solar wind protons as neutral hydrogen atoms from regolith in space},
author = {Martin Wieser and Stas Barabash and Yoshifumi Futaana and Mats Holmström and Anil Bhardwaj and R Sridharan and MB Dhanya and Peter Wurz and Audrey Schaufelberger and Kazushi Asamura},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.2972},
year = {2010}
}
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