Effects of darkening processes on surfaces of airless bodies

Abstract We find the lunar darkening process could be due neither to simple addition of impact-melted glass nor to addition of devitrified glass to crushed lunar rock. There is evidence that lunar soil grains have thin, very light-absorbing coatings that mask absorption bands, seen in the reflection spectra of freshly crushed lunar rock, in the same manner as they are masked in the spectra of lunar soils. We believe the processes that produce these coatings are (1) deposition of atoms sputtered from lunar soil grains by solar wind particles and (2) deposition of vapor species vaporized from lunar soil grains by micrometeorite impacts. Coatings produced in laboratory simulations of these processes owe their strong light-absorbing properties in large part to the presence of abundant metallic Fe grains smaller than 100 A in diameter. Another process, which depends on implantation of solar wind protons in lunar soil grains and their later mobilization during micrometeorite impacts to produce metallic Fe in the impact glass, also seems reasonable but has not yet been demonstrated experimentally. As a result of impact vaporization the Moon would preferentially lose minor amounts of light elements, principally monatomic oxygen, and this would result in oxygen depletion in the vapor condensate. This type of fraction would be more extreme on airless bodies with lower escape velocities. Sputtering occurs at higher effective temperatures and this would cause loss of all common rock-forming elements in approximately equal amounts. There would be some bias in this process toward retention of very heavy trace elements— a characteristic that has been observed in the lunar soil. This bias would be less important for smaller airless bodies. We describe an apparent new type of fractionation that occurs during deposition of sputtered atoms. This fractionation favors retention of higher mass atoms over lower mass atoms, and appears to be a linear function of mass. This may explain observed isotopic fractionations in lunar soil, in which the heavier isotope always appears to be enriched relative to the lighter one. This “first bounce fractionation” process should operate on all airless bodies. Na and K apparently do not conform to this fractionation process and have a much greater tendency to escape. This may help explain the presence of high Na concentrations around Io.