Determination of the Spatial Extent of the Engine Exhaust-Disturbed Region of the Chang'E-4 Landing Site Using LROC NAC Images

Abstract

The regolith of the Chang'E-4 landing site was disturbed by its engine exhaust. To explore the interaction between the engine exhaust and the regolith, it was necessary to identify the exhaust-disturbed region. This article focuses on determining the extent of the disturbed region by using lunar reconnaissance orbiter camera narrow angle camera (LROC NAC) images. For this purpose, the tools of temporal-ratio images, phase-ratio images, reflectance profiles, and reflectance isoline graphs are employed. The reflectance profiles and isoline graphs derived from the temporal-ratio images reveal the reflectance changes before and after landing. Compared with the reflectance profiles, isoline graphs further include the spatial information of isolines, thus more robust to noise. Based on the magnitudes of changed reflectance around the lander, the engine exhaust-disturbed region was further divided into the focus disturbed region (FDR) and the diffuse disturbed region (DDR). The final estimated spatial extent along the north–south and east–west directions of the FDR were ∼9.6 and ∼10.8 m, and those of the DDR were ∼75 and ∼80 m. As compared with the estimated spatial extent of the Chang'E-3 landing site, the DDR of the Chang'E-4 landing site was larger, but the FDR was smaller. We attributed this to geological and topography factors. The reflectance changes between the FDR and the undisturbed region increased by ∼10±1%. This indicates similar processes causing the variations in the regolith properties, likely including the smoothing of the surface from microscopic to macroscopic by destroying fine-grained regolith components, or changing of the surface maturity.