Hyperfine Structure of Regolith Unveiled by Chang'E-5 Lunar Regolith Penetrating Radar

This work presents the results of the Lunar Regolith Penetrating Radar (LRPR), installed at the bottom of the Chang'E-5 (CE-5) lander, which is the first antenna-array radar deployed for the investigation of an extraterrestrial body. Radar imaging results unveiled a hyperfine structure for the top 2.5-m-thick lunar regolith with an unprecedented high resolution of 5 cm. The interpretation of the results permitted to state that subsurface regolith is dominated by fine grains with abundant rock fragments. The radar imaging results were also used to drive the drilling process until a fragment jammed the core inlet at about 100-cm underground. Laboratory measurements of the samples returned at Earth allow to estimate the real part of relative permittivity and the loss tangent, which are 3.04 +/- 0.02 and 0.014 +/- 0.002, respectively.

Automated summary

This study presents the results of the Lunar Regolith Penetrating Radar (LRPR), providing insights into the fine structure of the lunar surface and the composition of the subsurface regolith. Laboratory measurements of returned samples further allow estimation of the real part of relative permittivity and the loss tangent of the Moon.