Chandrayaan-2 makes first observations of distribution of argon-40 in moon’s atmosphere.

Why in news?

• Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2), a mass spectrometer onboard Chandrayaan-2 mission, has made the first-of-its-kind observations of the global distribution of Argon-40 in the lunar exosphere.
• Earlier, NASA’s Apollo-17 had detected presence of Ar-40 in the lunar exosphere confined only to near-equatorial region of Moon.
• Exosphere’ is outermost region of upper atmosphere where the constituent atoms and molecules rarely collide with each other and can escape into space.
• Significance – observations provide details on the spatial variations in Ar-40 through the lunar day covering the equatorial and mid latitude regions of the Moon.
• Observations are also indicative of unknown or additional loss processes, Moon quakes or regions with lower activation energies.

Chandrayaan-2 mission

• It is an Indian lunar mission to explore the unchartered south pole of Moon by landing a rover. Its lander is ‘Vikram’ and rover is ‘Pragyan’.
• Launched by Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk-III in 2019.
• Though mission spacecraft failed its soft landing on the Moon’s surface, its Orbiter continues to successfully collect insights about the Moon.
• About Chandrayaan-1
• It was the first lunar space probe of ISRO and found water on the Moon.
• It mapped Moon in infrared, visible, and X-ray light from lunar orbit and used reflected radiation to prospect for various elements, minerals, and ice.
• About Argon
• It is an inert, colorless and odorless element, and a noble gas.
• Argon-40 is isotope of Argon that originates from the radioactive disintegration of Potassium-40 (K-40) present below the lunar surface.