Review of research on lunar dust dynamics

TL;DR

This paper reviews existing research on lunar dust dynamics, focusing on its origin, behavior, and implications for lunar exploration safety and mission planning.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of lunar dust generation, movement, and modeling, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps in current understanding.

Findings

Lunar dust is mainly produced by hypervelocity impacts of interplanetary micrometeoroids.

Dust particles exhibit specific initial velocity and ejecta angle distributions.

Understanding dust dynamics informs safer lunar exploration and mission design.

Abstract

Lunar dust particles are generated by hypervelocity impacts of interplanetary micron-meteoroids onto the surface of the Moon, which seriously threatens the security of explorations. Studying the lunar dust dynamics helps to understand the origin and migration mechanism of lunar dust, and to provide the theoretical guidelines for the orbital design of lunar space missions. This paper reviews previous research on the lunar dust dynamics, including the interplanetary impactor environment at the Earth-Moon system, the mass production rate, the initial mass, speed and ejecta angle distributions, the related space exploration missions, the dynamical model and spatial distribution of dust particles originating from the lunar surface in the whole Earth-Moon system.