Volatile Retention on the Lunar Poles and on Asteroid Vesta as Derived from Radar Surface Roughness Observations
Abstract
On Asteroid Vesta, large areas of relatively smoother terrain (at centimeter-decimeter scales) are found to overlap with areas of heightened subsurface hydrogen concentrations, but show no correlation with surface age - suggesting that impact cratering processes alone cannot explain the regolith's surface texture. Instead, it is hypothesized that Vesta's surface may have been smoothened in these areas at cm-dm scales by the release of buried water-ice after heating, melting and upward flow along impact fractures, leading to the erasure of small-scale surface textures. In this study, we will compare distributions of cm-dm surface roughness, subsurface hydrogen concentrations, and surface ages at the Moon's poles using LRO data acquired by Mini-RF, LEND and LROC, respectively. Our analysis will provide further insights into the mechanisms that govern the variability of cm-dm surface texture across airless, desiccated planetary bodies - including the role of surface and subsurface volatile occurrence.
- Publication:
-
EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019
- Pub Date:
- September 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019EPSC...13.1819P