Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2(CHACE-2), a payload onboard Chandrayaan-2, has made the first-of-its-kind discovery on the distribution of one of the noble gasses, Argon-40.<\/span><\/p>\n Chandrayaan-2 is the second lunar exploration mission launched by ISRO in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n Objective: <\/b>To demonstrate ISRO\u2019s capability to make a soft landing on the moon.<\/span><\/p>\n The mission had a lander and a rover component<\/b> that was supposed to carry out a number of experiments on the lunar surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, due to technical glitches<\/b> in the final moments ahead of the touchdown, the lander was unable to make a soft landing. Instead, it crash-landed and got destroyed.<\/span><\/p>\n But the Orbiter is continuing to carry out its scientific experiments<\/b>. It is carrying eight instruments, including CHACE-2, for different kinds of measurements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Read more about Chandrayaan-2<\/a><\/p>\n Argon-40 (Ar-40) is known to exist in the lunar exosphere. But the knowledge on its distribution at higher latitudes is lacking.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now, the CHACE-2 payload has shown that the distribution of Argon-40 gas in the lunar \u2018exosphere\u2019 exists beyond the areas that were known. It has d<\/span>etected the presence of Argon in the equatorial and mid-latitude regions of the Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n The payload has also revealed that the distribution of Ar-40 has significant spatial heterogeneity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, there are localised enhancements (termed as Argon bulge) over several regions including the KREEP [potassium (K), Rare-Earth Elements, and Phosphorus (P)] on South Pole Aitken terrain (impact crater on the far side of the Moon).<\/span><\/p>\n Note: <\/b>‘<\/b>Exosphere’ is the outermost region of the upper atmosphere of a celestial body where the constituent atoms and molecules rarely collide with each other and can escape into space.<\/span><\/p>\n Noble gases serve as important tracers to understand the processes of surface-exosphere interaction, and Argon-40 (Ar-40) is such an important tracer atom to study the dynamics of the lunar exospheric species.<\/span><\/p>\n Ar-40 originates from the radioactive disintegration of Potassium-40 (K-40) present below the lunar surface. Once formed, it diffuses through the inter-granular space and makes its way up to the lunar exosphere through seepages and faults.<\/span><\/p>\n The CHACE-2 observations provide the diurnal and spatial variation of Ar-40 covering the equatorial and mid-latitude regions of the Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n The uniqueness of this discovery lies in the fact that although Apollo-17(1972) and Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE Mission 2014) have detected the presence of Ar-40 in the lunar exosphere, the measurements were confined to the near-equatorial region of the Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, the observations of Argon bulge by CHACE-2 are indicative of unknown or additional loss processes.<\/span><\/p>\n Source<\/b>: This post is based on the article \u201c<\/b>Chandrayaan-2 makes first observations of distribution of Argon-40 in Moon\u2019s atmosphere<\/b>\u201d <\/b>published in The Hindu <\/b>on 10th Mar 2022\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is the News? Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2(CHACE-2), a payload onboard Chandrayaan-2, has made the first-of-its-kind discovery on the distribution of one of the noble gasses, Argon-40. What is Chandrayaan-2? Chandrayaan-2 is the second lunar exploration mission launched by ISRO in 2019. Objective: To demonstrate ISRO\u2019s capability to make a soft landing on the moon.… Continue reading Chandrayaan-2 makes first observations of distribution of Argon-40 in Moon\u2019s atmosphere<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1738,9],"tags":[10498],"class_list":["post-173284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-science-and-technology-daily-factly-articles","category-public","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1699857472},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is Chandrayaan-2?<\/b><\/h5>\n
What is the discovery made by the CHACE-2 payload?<\/b><\/h5>\n
What is the significance of this discovery?<\/b><\/h5>\n