The shallow subsurface structures of Chang’E-3 landing site based on the wavefield characteristics of LPR Channel-2B data

Abstract

The Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) carried by the Yutu rover has imaged the shallow subsurface of the Chang’E-3 (CE-3) landing site at the northern Mare Imbrium. In this paper, by processing LPR Channel-2B data we obtained radar waveform profile. According to the radar wavefield characteristics in the profile, three evident strata can be discovered in the lunar shallow subsurface below the CE-3 site. Most notably, many arc-shaped reflection and/or diffraction events are observed in the profile, especially more in the second layer. In order to find out what caused those arc-shaped events, we conducted radar wavefield numerical simulation. The numerical simulation results reveal that those arc-shaped events are most possibly resulted in by the rocks of different sizes and shapes from the craters surrounding the landing site, especially the C1 crater.