Isro collects Chandrayaan-2 data to aid study of Moon's polar regions

Isro on Saturday said it has collected advanced data from the Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter to gain a deeper understanding of the Moon's polar regions, including parameters describing the physical and dielectric properties of its surface.

This is India's major value addition towards future global exploration of the Moon, it said.

According to an Isro statement, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter has been in orbit around the Moon since 2019 and has been providing high-quality data.

One of the payloads, the Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR), is the first instrument that has mapped the Moon using the L-band in full-polarimetric mode and in the highest resolution (25m/pixel).

This advanced radar mode sends and receives signals in both vertical and horizontal directions, making it ideal for studying surface properties, it said.

The space agency said that since its launch, about 1,400 radar datasets have been collected and processed to create polarimetric mosaics of the north and south polar regions (80 to 90 degrees latitude) of the Moon.

"Using the datasets, scientists from the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, have developed advanced data products on the potential presence of water-ice, surface roughness, as well as an important electrical property, namely the dielectric constant, which describes features like density and porosity of the Moon's surface," it said.

The algorithm for analysing the full-polarimetric data has been developed, and the data products have been generated indigenously by Isro, the space agency said.

Isro said these advanced data products are significant in view of gathering first-order information about the Moon's polar regions.

Such regions are expected to have preserved the early chemical conditions of the solar system, which are important clues to explain several facets of the evolution of planetary bodies.

"This kind of ready-to-use data product on lunar polar regions has always been sought after, because it will provide holistic information to characterise the polar regions for future lunar exploration. These products complement hyperspectral data in studying the distribution of minerals on the Moon," it stated.

The space agency said the polar mosaics include key radar parameters that reveal the physical and electrical (dielectric) characteristics of the Moon's surface and subsurface.

"The derived Polar Mosaic products (Level 3C) are released for users and are freely available on the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) PRADAN website," it added.