Noble Gas Isotopes on the Moon |
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Authors: | Wieler R Heber VS |
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Institution: | (1) ETH Zürich, Isotope Geology, NO C61, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | We discuss some of the major noble gas components on the Moon and their implications on the history of Moon and Sun. He, Ar,
and Rn have been detected in the tenuous lunar atmosphere. The Ar and Rn abundances suggest that a sizeable fraction of the
lunar interior presently loses all its freshly produced radiogenic noble gases. Part of the radiogenic Ar and Xe (the latter
from now extinct radioactive isotopes of I and Pu) outgassed from the lunar interior later became retrapped in the dust grains
on the lunar surface. These “parentless” gases may also be used to constrain the degassing history of the Moon, although a
quantitative understanding is lacking. The dust layer on the lunar surface contains large amounts of noble gases implanted
by the solar wind. The lunar regolith therefore constitutes the best available archive of the solar history of the past four
billion years.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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