The search for electrostatically lofted grains above the Moon with the Lunar Dust Experiment

Abstract

AbstractThe Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) on board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission was designed to make in situ dust measurements while orbiting the Moon. Particles with radii a >∼ 0.3μm were detected as single impacts. LDEX was also capable of measuring the collective signal generated from dust impacts with sizes below its single‐particle detection threshold. A putative population of electrostatically lofted grains above the lunar terminator with radii of approximately 0.1 μm has been suggested to exist since the Apollo era. LDEX performed the first search with an in situ dust detector for such a population. Here we present the results of the LDEX observations taken over the lunar terminator and report that within LDEX's detection limits, we found no evidence of electrostatically lofted grains in the altitude range of 3–250 km above the lunar terminator.