[merged] Neon Found in Lunar Atmosphere

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA's LADEE Spacecraft Finds Neon in Lunar Atmosphere

The moon's thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed its existence for the first time.

"The presence of neon in the exosphere of the moon has been a subject of speculation since the Apollo missions, but no credible detections were made," said Mehdi Benna of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We were very pleased to not only finally confirm its presence, but to show that it is relatively abundant." Benna is lead author of a paper describing observations from LADEE's Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) instrument published May 28 in Geophysical Research Letters.

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[Anomalocaris]

Finally, we have proof of the moon’s “noble” heritage! Measurements from NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, aka LADEE (pronounced “laddie”) have confirmed the long-suspected presence of neon in its atmosphere (neon is one of the noble gases — see what I did there?) along with isotopes of argon and helium. The relative concentrations of each of these elements also appears to depend on the time of day.

The Moon is Surrounded by Neon, NASA Probe Reveals

[Sundew]

One often thinks of the moon as having no atmosphere and it is kind of surprising that it should have one of noble gases given they are light weight and might evaporate into space or been blown away by the solar wind.