An Indian spacecraft has picked up its first X-rays from the moon with a little help from a small solar flare.
A European camera on India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter detected a faint X-ray signal coming from a region near one of NASA's old Apollo landing sites for a brief three seconds. But the signal was clear enough to spot traces of magnesium, aluminum and silicon making up the lunar region.
Chandrayaan-1's European-built C1XS X-ray camera caught the short X-ray burst from the moon on Dec. 12 just a small solar flare began pummeling the lunar surface to spark the fluorescence, ESA researchers said.
Scientists were surprised to pick up any X-ray signals at all since the flare was about 20 times weaker than the lowest limit the C1XS camera was designed to detect.
Chandrayaan-1 is not the first spacecraft to scour the moon for X-ray signals to uncover secrets of the lunar surface composition. The space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's SMART-1 moon probe, for example, have also used X-ray cameras to scrutinize the lunar surface.
But Chandrayaan-1's camera may yield new insight because of its sensitivity.
India launched the Chandrayaan-1 toward the moon in October 2008 and entered orbit a month later armed with 11 scientific instruments to map the lunar surface and its composition. The spacecraft also dropped a small probe that slammed into the moon to take close-up photographs and test technologies for future landers.
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