Special Thermophysical Features of Floor Materials in Mare Smythii Indicated by CE-2 CELMS Data

Abstract

Mare Smythii is a special basin, which is one of the oldest mare basins with the considerably young mare basalts and the high density of floor-fractured craters. In this article, the microwave sounder, named CELMS, onboard Chang'E-2 lunar orbiter was first invested to assess the thermophysical characteristics of the floor materials in mare Smythii. Based on the numerical simulation with the radiative transfer model and the previous geological results, several special findings are noted as follows. First, the substrate temperature in mare Smythii is likely fairly high, and a special temperature structure is provided. Second, there likely exists an unrevealed deposit in the upper layer of the regolith with strong thermal absorption ability. Third, the CELMS results show a strong correlation with the subsurface features obtained by lunar radar sounder data and the surface wrinkle ridges. These findings will be of essential importance to strengthen knowing the thermal and magmatic evolutions of the lunar maria.

Keywords

• High substrate temperature
• mare Smythii
• microwave propagation
• remote sensing
• thermal anomaly
• wrinkle ridges