Abstract
Some of the bonded particles of lunar soil samples separated upon exposure to reactive gases such as oxygen, water vapor, their mixtures, acids and bases. The bondings between particles susceptible to gas-disruption seemed to be generally weak and appeared to have taken place via highly radiation-damaged layers at the particle surfaces. These amorphous layers with an average thickness of about 0.05µm were produced by the solar wind exposure of about 2000 years. Therefore, the solar wind was responsible for the formation of these weak bondings and also probably responsible for disruption of these bondings. Apollo 11 and 12 landed in the equatorial region and about 1500 km apart. Thus, the solar wind effects on materials at these sites should have been about the same and the proportion of bonded particles separated by reactive gas exposure should also have been about the same; but the number of separations observed was about 2.7 (average) times greater in the Apollo 11 soil sample than in the Apollo 12 soil sample. This finding suggests that the number of weakly bonded particles and probably the solar-wind damaged amorphous layer particles at these sites was about in the same proportion. It is, therefore, considered that materials from certain depth (practically not exposed to the solar wind) of another site were transported and mixed during recent years (considerably less than 2000 years) with the original materials of the Apollo 12 site. This is consistent with the conclusions made by other investigators.
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Mukherjee, N.R. Gas interaction effects on lunar bonded particles and their implications. The Moon 15, 403–413 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00562248
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00562248