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Abstract: Investigation on Lunar polar area is almost every lunar mission’s primary objective in recent years. The rationale behind it is that illumination and ice resources in this area can be potentially very helpful for constructing lunar human base. In this paper, we analyze microwave radiometric characteristics of the Moon by using the newly acquired Chang’E-1 Lunar Microwave Sounder (CELMS) data. Microwave brightness temperature at Lunar South Pole (LSP) is distributed regularly with a style of “ring-in-ring”, decreasing from equator to pole. Regolith temperature gradient is bigger at lunar equator than at polar area. Brightness temperature diurnal difference decreases with observation frequency. Microwave brightness temperature distribution maps at LSP and Lunar North Pole (LNP) have been made based on the analysis. It is found that microwave brightness temperature becomes to synchronize with elevation beyond −85° latitude. This phenomenon is related to lightening condition and indicates temperaturedistribution at LSP. The brightness temperature anomaly cold points are potentially cold trap areas for water or ice while hot points imply plenty of illumination resources there.

Abstract: Surface temperature profile is an important parameter in lunar microwave remote sensing. Based on the analysis of physical properties of the lunar samples brought back by the Apollo and Luna missions, we modeled temporal and spatial variation of lunar surface temperature with the heat conduction equation, and produced temperature distribution in top 6.0 m of lunar regolith of the whole Moon surface. Our simulation results show that the profile of lunar surface temperature varies mainly within the top 20 cm, except at the lunar polar regions where the changes can reach to about 1.0 m depth. The temperature is stable beyond that depth. The variations of lunar surface temperature lead to main changes in brightness temperature (T B ) at different channels of the lunar microwave sounder (CELMS) on Chang’E-1 (CE-1). The results of this paper show that the temperature profile influenced CELMS T B , which provides strong validation on the CELMS data, and lays a solid basis for future interpretation and utilization of the CELMS data.

Abstract: Lunar regolith parameters, such as physical temperature, thickness and dielectric constant, are important in studying regolith features, distribution of lunar resources and evolution of the Moon. There had been no measurement obtained by lunar-orbit-borne microwave radiometer applied to evaluate the properties of lunar regolith before CE-1 Lunar Microwave Sounder (CELMS) being launched. CEMLS is the first passive microwave radiometer in the world to sound the surface of the Moon. The brightness temperatures (T B ) sensed by CELMS include complicated information on the above geophysical parameters. In this paper, algorithms of retrieving dielectric constant, regolith thickness, and 3He content from CELMS brightness temperatures are developed, and the results are compared with those from literature. The results show that the regolith thicknesses are mostly in the range of 4.0–6.0 m, and 43% of them are bigger than 5.0 m. The content of 3He evaluated by retrieved regolith thickness is about 1.03 million tons.