A quantitative comparison of lunar orbital neutron data

Abstract

Data from the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) Collimated Sensors for Epithermal Neutrons (CSETN) are used in conjunction with a model based on results from the Lunar Prospector mission to quantify the extent of the background in the LEND CSETN. A simple likelihood analysis implies that at least 90% of the lunar component of the LEND CSETN flux results from high energy epithermal neutrons passing through the walls of the collimator. Thus, the effective full-width at half-maximum of the LEND CSETN is comparable with that of the omni-directional Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer. The resulting map of high energy epithermal neutrons offers the opportunity to probe the hydrogen abundance at low latitudes, and provide constraints on the distribution of lunar water.

19 pages, 14 figures, updated version accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (2)

• HEALPix -- a Framework for High Resolution Discretization, and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere
• The spatial distribution of polar hydrogen deposits on the Moon

Cited by in corpus (1)

• The effect of craters on the lunar neutron flux