According to the Indian Space Research Organization, the X-ray spectrometer "CLASS" on the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter has mapped an abundance of sodium on the moon for the first time. This allows for the moon to be marked as sodium as possible, according to ISRO.
According to a statement on Friday, Chandrayaan-2 mapped the amount of sodium on the Moon for the first time in a ''The Astrophysical Journal Letters.''
"CLASS, which is located at ISRO''s U R Rao satellite facility, has provided clean signatures of the sodium line owing to its high sensitivity and performance," said the auditorium.
A portion of the signal may be formed from a thin slate of sodium atoms that are weakly linked to the lunar grains, according to the study.
These sodium atoms can be nudged out of the surface by solar wind or ultraviolet radiation more easily than if they were part of the lunar minerals. Another evidence is the diurnal variation of the surface sodium that would explain the continuous supply of atoms to the exosphere, thus preserving it.
The significance of this alkali element is its presence in the wreathful moon atmosphere, a region so thin that the atoms there rarely meet.
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This region, formerly known as "exosphere," begins at the surface of the moon and extends several thousand kilometers into the interplanetary space, according to the statement.
"The new findings from Chandrayaan-2 provide an avenue to investigate surface-exosphere interactions on the moon, which would assist in the development of similar algorithms for mercury and other airless bodies in our solar system and beyond," the ISRO said.