The Generation of Surface-bound Exospheres via Electron-Stimulated Desorption (and Related Phenomena): Results from Apollo samples and Hermian Regolith Simulants

Abstract:

The generation of surface-bound exospheres present around the Moon, Mercury and other airless rocky bodies are produced primarily by the interaction of micrometeoroid impacts and charged particles from the solar wind, and magnetospheres with those surfaces. While the study of the interactions of both micrometeoroids and ion sputtering are well investigated, the contributions arising from energetic electron interactions are typically less-well established. Observations from the Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS), taken < 400 km from the surface, have shown a plasma cusp with energetic heavy ions (i.e. Na⁺- and O⁺-groups) for which the source has not been determined. However, the precipitation of keV electrons onto the surfaces of Mercury has recently been inferred from measurements using the X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) instrument onboard the MESSENGER spacecraft observations of the night-side of Mercury. A newly developed global kinetic transport model suggests that electron-stimulated desorption (ESD), and possibly light ion stimulated desorption (ISD), can directly yield ions that can be transported and dynamically accelerated to the plasma cusp regions observed by FIPS. In addition, keV electrons and ions from the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere frequently bombard with the lunar surface. Here, we present some of the most recent results from our ongoing work studying the effects of photon-stimulated desorption (PSD), ion-stimulated desorption (ISD) and implantation, as well as electron-stimulated desorption (ESD). Apollo samples collected from both the lunar highland and Mare regions, as well as simulants of the Mercury Regolith have been investigated. The temperature- (100-600 K) and energy-dependence (threshold – 2 keV) of ESD time-of-flight (ToF) results will be presented for these materials along with some preliminary results from our group based on photon-desorption studies of water on lunar material, temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) studies of water covered regolith and dusts, as well as the effects of ion implantation/sputtering using keV H⁺ ions on ESD-ToF results. The implications of these results in the context of current observations will be discussed.