Studying the Lunar-Solar Wind Interaction with the SARA Experiment aboard the Indian Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-1

TL;DR

This paper details the SARA instrument on Chandrayaan-1, which studied lunar-solar wind interactions by detecting neutral atoms and ions, revealing significant backscattering of solar wind protons from the lunar surface.

Contribution

Introduction of the SARA instrument and first measurements of solar wind interactions with the Moon's surface using ENA imaging and ion analysis.

Findings

20% of solar wind protons are backscattered as neutral hydrogen

Approximately 1% of incident protons are reflected as protons

First in-situ measurements of lunar surface sputtering by solar wind

Abstract

The first Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008. The Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) instrument onboard Chandrayaan-1 consists of an energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging mass analyzer called CENA (Chandrayaan-1 Energetic Neutrals Analyzer), and an ion-mass analyzer called SWIM (Solar wind Monitor). CENA performed the first ever experiment to study the solar wind-planetary surface interaction via detection of sputtered neutral atoms and neutralized backscattered solar wind protons in the energy range ~0.01-3.0 keV. SWIM measures solar wind ions, magnetosheath and magnetotail ions, as well as ions scattered from lunar surface in the ~0.01-15 keV energy range. The neutral atom sensor uses conversion of the incoming neutrals to positive ions, which are then analyzed via surface interaction technique. The ion mass analyzer is based on similar principle. This paper presents the SARA instrument and the first results obtained by the SWIM and CENA sensors. SARA observations suggest that about 20% of the incident solar wind protons are backscattered as neutral hydrogen and ~1% as protons from the lunar surface. These findings have important implications for other airless bodies in the solar system.