A Rock Model for the Cold and Hot Spots in the Chang’E Microwave Brightness Temperature Map

Abstract

Thermal anomaly spots (both hot and cold) have been found in the global 37-GHz brightness temperature (TB) map of the moon based on the Chang’E (CE) microwave radiometer measurements. To explain their origin, a rock model is proposed to simulate the TB variation against latitude along the profile of a fresh crater in a single track way, which is selected to highlight the topographic effect and avoid any modification to the data. A mixed upper layer made up of rock and soil (regolith and dust) was employed into our previous multilayer model. The thermal properties (thermal conductivity and heat capacity) of the mixture layer are presumed to be linear with the fraction of rocks. Given that high-frequency (37 GHz) measurements are chosen, only the meter size and larger rocks of the upper mixed layer are considered to avoid scattering effects. Several fresh craters poor/rich in ilmenite are selected as testing sites. Despite uncertainties in parameters such as rock abundance (RA), and iron and titanium abundances, three conclusions can be reached from these cases: 1) RA has a significant effect on both the TB value and TB variation trend against latitude; its contribution over some craters may be as high as 15 K; 2) the simulations based on our rock model fit the CE observations better than those when rocks are not included; and 3) the rock and ilmenite contributions could be the main cause for the cold and hot spots found in the CE microwave map.