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News- RAMBHA-LP from Chandrayaan-3 has reported new findings showing a far denser and more energetic plasma environment near the Moon’s south-polar region.
About RAMBHA-LP
RAMBHA-LP stands for Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive Ionosphere and Atmosphere – Langmuir Probe. It was a scientific payload onboard the Vikram lander of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Naming: It is named after Irving Langmuir, the American chemist and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Developed by: It was developed by the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram.
Design: It is a 5 cm metallic spherical probe mounted on a 1-metre boom attached to the Chandrayaan-3 lander’s upper deck.
Function
• It is designed to study the near-surface lunar plasma environment at the Moon’s south polar region.
• It is used to characterise plasma, the fourth state of matter consisting of charged particles like ions and free electrons.
Discoveries
• It detected electron densities of 380–600 particles per cubic centimetre, which are much higher than earlier remote-sensing estimates.
• It recorded electron temperatures of 3,000–8,000 Kelvin, showing a more energised plasma layer than previously known.
