The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday informed that the Orbiter of Chadrayaan 2 has detected charged particles and its intensity variations on the surface of Moon.
” CLASS, #Chandrayaan2’s Orbiter payload, in its first few days of observation, could detect charged particles and its intensity variations during its first passage through the geotail during Sept”, ISRO tweeted.
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CLASS, #Chandrayaan2's Orbiter payload, in its first few days of observation, could detect charged particles and its intensity variations during its first passage through the geotail during Sept.
For more details, please visit https://t.co/OzfhxGMaVP pic.twitter.com/i1sLbouN86— ISRO (@isro) October 3, 2019
The ISRO in a statement informed that the CLASS instrument on Chadrayaan 2 is designed to detect direct signatures of elements present in the moon’s soil.
” This is best observed when a solar flare on the Sun provides a rich source of x-rays to illuminate the lunar surface; secondary x-ray emission resulting from this can be detected by CLASS to directly detect the presence of key elements like Na,Ca,Al,Si,Ti, and Fe. While this kind of flash photography requires one to await an opportune time for the Sun to be active, CLASS in its first few days of observation could detect charged particles and its intensity variations during its first passage through the geotail during September”, ISRO informed.
Approximately once every 29 days, Moon transverse the geotail for about 6 days centered around full moon. Thus Chandrayaan 2 also crosses this geotail and its instruments can study properties of geotail at a few hundred thousand kilometers from Earth.
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