Introduction: With NASA’s return to the Moon, the determination of safe landing sites for future robotic and human missions is crucial, and rock abundance will be important criteria for landing site selection. Thermal inertias derived from remote sensing in the thermal infrared is a powerful technique for assessing rock abundance for the purpose of landing site selection on Mars [1,2]. Rocks a ...

The Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is one of five instruments on-board the Suomi National Polarorbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite that launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2011. VIIRS has been scheduled to view the Moon approximately monthly with a spacecraft roll maneuver after its NADIR door open on November 21, 2011. To reduce the uncertainty of th...

Origin of Lunar Basalts: A Geophysical Interpretation J. Arkani-Hamed Lunar Pyroclastic Soils of the Apollo 17 Double Drive Tube 74001/2 A. Basu, D. S. McKay, and S. J. Wentworth Lunar Explosive Volcanism: The Remote Sensing Perspective C. R. Coombs and B. R. Hawke The Optimal Lunar Resource: Ilmenite-rich Regional Pyroclastic Deposits C. R. Coombs, B. R. Hawke, and B. Clark Pyroclastic Volcani...

The optical properties of lunar softs are different than those of rocks from which they are derived. As a consequence of lunar space weathering, soils are darker and exhibit a distinctive red-sloped continuum and weaker mineral absorption bands. The accumulation of dark glass-welded aggregates (agglutinates) has been thought to account for these optical effects of space weathering on lunar soil...

Introduction: In planetary environments with stable H2O in the target (Earth, Mars), large impacts will generate extensive hydrothermal systems associated with the ejecta blankets [i.e. 1,2 and references within]. Although the Moon’s crust is considered to be dry by most standards (with the possible exception of the polar deposits), there are textures preserved in the lunar sample collection th...

Introduction: Upon cooling in their host rocks, orthopyroxenes undergo cation ordering and exsolution processes. The state of order achieved during cooling [1] and the type and morphology of the exsolution products depend on the rate of cooling. Often, the formation of stable exsolution phases is preceded by the formation of metastable phases, e.g. Guinier-Preston (GP) zones. GP zones consist o...

Introduction: Magmatic volatiles such as H 2 O, F, Cl, CO 2 , and S play a critical role in physiochemical processes that control thermal stabilities of minerals and melts, magma eruptive processes, and transport of economically important metals. Of these volatiles, water is the dominant magmatic volatile in terrestrial magmas both because of its abundance and its strong effect on physical prop...

Introduction: As NASA turns its exploration ambitions towards the Moon once again, the research and development of new technologies for lunar operations face the challenge of meeting the milestones of a fast-pace schedule, reminiscent of the 1960's Apollo program. While the lunar samples returned by the Apollo and Luna missions have revealed much about the Moon, these priceless materials exist ...

Introduction: One of the important outstanding goals of lunar science is understanding the bombardment history of the Moon and calibrating the impact flux curve for extrapolation to the Earth and other terrestrial planets. Obtaining a sample from a carefully-characterized interior melt sheet or a ring massif is a reliable way to tell a single crater's age. A different but complementary approach...