Lunar regolith thickness determination from 3D morphology of small fresh craters

Abstract

The lunar regolith can provide critical information about the Moon and the space environment. In the study of lunar regolith, thickness is one of its most important parameters because of the significance in estimating the relative geologic age and the quantities of solar wind implanted volatiles. In this research, an improved morphological method for determining the lunar regolith thickness is proposed by directly measuring the distance from the lunar ground surface to the floor (flat-bottomed and central-mound craters) or bench (concentric craters) of indicative small fresh craters. The pre-impact ground surface is first modeled with crater edge points through plane fitting, avoiding crater ejecta. Then the lunar regolith thickness is calculated as the distance between the modeled ground surface and the crater floor or bench. The method has been verified at the landing sites of Chang’E-3 rover with high-resolution stereo images from Chang’E-2 orbiter, and the landing sites of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions with high-resolution Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter DEM data. All the results are in good agreement with results from in-situ measurements, demonstrating the reliability of the proposed method. This method can be applied to estimate lunar regolith thickness where high-precision topographic data is available.