{"id":57301,"date":"2025-10-22T19:49:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=57301"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:58:02","slug":"coronal-mass-ejection-lunar-exosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/22-10-2025\/coronal-mass-ejection-lunar-exosphere","title":{"rendered":"Impact of a Coronal Mass Ejection on the Lunar Exosphere\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS3 \/ Science and Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Chandrayaan-2 mission has made the first-ever observation of the effects of the <strong>Sun&#8217;s Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)<\/strong> on the Moon using its onboard scientific instruments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About the observation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The finding was made by <strong><strong>Chandra\u2019s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2<\/strong> (CHACE-2)<\/strong>, a payload onboard Chandrayaan-2\u2019s orbiter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>CHACE-2 recorded a <strong>sharp rise in total pressure and molecular density<\/strong> in the Moon\u2019s sunlit exosphere.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>CMEs<\/strong> are the events when the Sun ejects significant quantities of its building material, comprising mostly <strong>Helium and Hydrogen ions.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"3f2b22\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #3f2b22;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"336\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Impact-of-a-Coronal-Mass-Ejection-on-the-Lunar-Exosphere-.webp\" alt=\"Impact of a Coronal Mass Ejection on the Lunar Exosphere\u00a0\" class=\"not-transparent wp-image-57320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Impact-of-a-Coronal-Mass-Ejection-on-the-Lunar-Exosphere-.webp 600w, https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Impact-of-a-Coronal-Mass-Ejection-on-the-Lunar-Exosphere--300x168.webp 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Composition of Lunar Exosphere<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Moon\u2019s atmosphere is <strong>extremely thin<\/strong>, classified as an exosphere, implying that the gas atoms and molecules in the lunar environment rarely interact despite their coexistence.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The boundary of the exosphere is the surface of the Moon and hence the Moon\u2019s exosphere falls under the category of <strong>\u2018surface boundary exosphere\u2019.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The lunar exosphere is <strong>formed by processes<\/strong> such as:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Solar radiation,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Solar wind (ions of hydrogen, helium, and trace heavier elements), and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Meteorite impacts that release surface atoms into space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unlike Earth, the <strong>Moon lacks a magnetic field<\/strong>, making it directly exposed to CMEs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ebecf0\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Chandrayaan-2<\/strong><br>&#8211; Chandrayaan-2 was India&#8217;s<strong> second lunar mission<\/strong>, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in <strong>2019, <\/strong>using the<strong> GSLV-MkIII-M1 rocket.<\/strong><br>&#8211; <strong>It comprises<\/strong> an orbiter, lander (Vikram), and rover (Pragyan).&nbsp;<br>&#8211; <strong>CHACE-2 Payload Objective: <\/strong>To study the composition, distribution, and variability of the lunar neutral exosphere.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Significance of the observation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It provides valuable <strong>insight into lunar exospheric dynamics and space weather <\/strong>effects on airless celestial bodies.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enhances understanding of <strong>Sun\u2013Moon interactions<\/strong>, contributing to better space weather prediction models.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Provides critical knowledge for <strong>future lunar missions and habitats,<\/strong> especially for human presence on the Moon by 2040.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reinforces India\u2019s growing capability in <strong>planetary science and space environment monitoring.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsonair.gov.in\/chandrayaan-2-becomes-first-mission-to-observe-suns-coronal-mass-ejections-on-the-moon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>AIR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">The Chandrayaan-2 mission has made the first-ever observation of the effects of the Sun&#8217;s Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on the Moon using its onboard scientific instruments.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>About the observation<\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">The finding was made by Chandra\u2019s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2), a payload onboard Chandrayaan-2\u2019s orbiter.<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">CHACE-2 recorded a sharp rise in total pressure and molecular density in the Moon\u2019s sunlit exosphere.<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">CMEs are the events when the Sun ejects significant quantities of its building material, comprising mostly Helium and Hydrogen ions.<\/li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/22-10-2025\/coronal-mass-ejection-lunar-exosphere\" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read\u00a0More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":57267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2025\/10\/coronal-mass-ejection-lunar-exosphere.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57301"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57420,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57301\/revisions\/57420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}