Lunar absolute reflectance as observed by Chang’E-1 Imaging Interferometer

Abstract

Lunar absolute reflectance, which describes the fraction of solar radiation reflected by the Moon, is fundamental for the Chang’E-1 Imaging Interferometer (IIM) to map lunar mineralogical and elemental distributions. Recent observations made by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) onboard the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) spacecraft indicate that temporal variation in the solar radiation might have non-negligible influence on reflectance calculation, and the SIM measurements are different from the two previously used solar irradiances, i.e., ATLAS3 and Newkur. To provide reliable science results, we examined solar irradiance variability with the SIM daily observations, derived lunar absolute reflectances from the IIM 2A radiance with the SIM, ATLAS3 and Newkur data, and compared them with the Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), the Robotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO) and the Kaguya Multispectral Imager (MI) results. The temporal variability of the SIM solar irradiance is 0.25%–1.1% in the IIM spectral range, and less than 0.2% during the IIM observations. Nevertheless, the differences between the SIM measurements and the ATLAS3 and Newkur data can respectively rise up to 8% and 5% at particular IIM bands, resulting in discrepancy between which might affect compositional mapping. The IIM absolute reflectance we derived for the Moon using the SIM data, except for the last two bands, is consistent with the ROLO and the MI observations, although it is lower.