Fernández, S.C.; Alberquilla, F.; Fernández, J.M.; Díez, E.; Rodríguez, J.; Muñiz, R.; Calleja, J.F.; de Cos, F.J.; Martínez-Frías, J. Lunar Surface Resource Exploration: Tracing Lithium, 7 Li and Black Ice Using Spectral Libraries and Apollo Mission Samples. Remote Sens.2024, 16, 1306.
Fernández, S.C.; Alberquilla, F.; Fernández, J.M.; Díez, E.; Rodríguez, J.; Muñiz, R.; Calleja, J.F.; de Cos, F.J.; Martínez-Frías, J. Lunar Surface Resource Exploration: Tracing Lithium, 7 Li and Black Ice Using Spectral Libraries and Apollo Mission Samples. Remote Sens. 2024, 16, 1306.
Fernández, S.C.; Alberquilla, F.; Fernández, J.M.; Díez, E.; Rodríguez, J.; Muñiz, R.; Calleja, J.F.; de Cos, F.J.; Martínez-Frías, J. Lunar Surface Resource Exploration: Tracing Lithium, 7 Li and Black Ice Using Spectral Libraries and Apollo Mission Samples. Remote Sens.2024, 16, 1306.
Fernández, S.C.; Alberquilla, F.; Fernández, J.M.; Díez, E.; Rodríguez, J.; Muñiz, R.; Calleja, J.F.; de Cos, F.J.; Martínez-Frías, J. Lunar Surface Resource Exploration: Tracing Lithium, 7 Li and Black Ice Using Spectral Libraries and Apollo Mission Samples. Remote Sens. 2024, 16, 1306.
Abstract
This is an exercise to explore the concentration of Lithium, Lithium-7 isotope and the possible presence of black dirty ice in the lunar surface using spectral data obtained from the Clementine mission. The main interest in tracing the lithium and presence of dark ice in the lunar surface are closely related to future human settlement missions in the Moon. We investigate the distribution of Lithium and 7 Li isotope on the Lunar surface, employing spectral data from the Clementine images. We utilized Visible (VIS-NIR) imagery at wavelengths of 450, 750, 900, 950, and 1000 nm, along with Near-Infrared (NIR-SWIR) at 1100, 1250, 1500, 2000, 2600, and 2780 nm, encompassing 11 bands in total. This dataset offers a comprehensive coverage of about 80% of the lunar surface, with resolutions ranging from 100 to 500 meters, spanning latitudes from 80°S to 80°N. In order to extract quantitative abundance of Lithium, ground truth sites were used to calibrate the Clementine images. Samples (12045, 15058, 15475, 15555, 62255, 70035, 74220 and 75075) returned from Apollo missions 12, 15, 16 and 17 have been correlated to the Clementine VIS-NIR bands and five spectral ratios. The 5 spectral ratios calculated synthesize the main spectral features of sample spectra that were grouped by their Lithium and 7 Li content using Principal Component Analysis. The ratios spectrally characterize substrates of anorthosite, silica-rich basalts, olivine-rich basalts and High-T mare basalts and Orange soils. Our findings reveal a strong linear correlation between the spectral parameters and the lithium content in the 8 Apollo samples. With the values of the 11 Clementine bands and the 5 spectral ratios for each of the 8 lunar soils we performed linear regression models to estimate the concentration of Lithium and 7 Li. Also, we calculated Digital Terrain Models (DTMs; Altitude, Slope, Aspect, DirectInsolation and WindExposition) from LOLA-DTM to discover relations between relief and spatial distribution of the extended models of lithium and 7 Li. The analysis was conducted in a mask polygon extracted from Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and located around the Apollo 15 landing site. This analysis seeks to uncover potential 7 Li enrichment through spallation processes, influenced by varying exposure to solar wind. To explore the possibility of find ice mixed with regolithe (black ice) we used a spectral library (350-2500nm) form ices dirty with different concentration of volcanic particles.
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Space and Planetary Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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