Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2025

Simulating Imaging of Large Scale Radio Arrays on the Lunar Surface
Published on: July 30, 2020
First crustal magnetic anomaly estimates from the magnetometer observations of the Korea pathfinder lunar orbiter
Hyung Rae Kim1,2, Min-Jae Lee3, Ralph R B von Frese4
1Department of Geoenvironmental Sciences, Kongju National University, Gongju, Chungnam, Republic of Korea. kimhr@kongju.ac.kr.
Abstract:
First lunar crustal magnetic anomalies from the vector magnetometer onboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) called Danuri are evaluated at 100 km altitude over the areas where earlier satellite magnetic mapping missions observed strong anomalies. Although the KPLO data are still undergoing quality-control processing, the publicly available 'partially processed (PP)' data confirm five strong anomaly regions, Gerasimovich crater, Antipode of Serenitatis basin, Hayford crater, Crisium basin and Abel crater regions, where only marginal anomaly features were previously revealed at the higher altitudes. However, higher-altitude anomalies help constrain the regional effects of lunar crustal magnetic sources commonly masked by the shorter wavelengths of the shallower crustal sources. This study resolves five prominent anomaly features from six-months, PP-level KPLO magnetometer tracks by wavenumber correlation filtering. The higher-altitude anomaly features were investigated for mapping regional magnetic sources and constraining our understanding of lunar magnetism. The KPLO mission's orbital altitude decays with time to comprehensively sample the lunar magnetic anomalies for further insights on the Moon's magnetism.
Related Concept Videos
Atomic Nuclei: Larmor Precession Frequency
Atomic Nuclei: Magnetic Resonance
Meridians

