ISRO's Advanced Chandrayaan-2 Data Reveals Key Insights into Moon's Polar Regions for Future Lunar Exploration

The algorithm for analyzing the full-polarimetric data has been successfully developed. (Image posted on X by @isro)

ISRO announced on Saturday that it has gathered advanced data from the Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter to develop a deeper understanding of the Moon's polar regions, including parameters that describe the physical and dielectric properties of its surface.

This achievement represents India's significant contribution toward future global lunar exploration efforts.

According to ISRO's statement, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter has been orbiting the Moon since 2019, consistently providing high-quality scientific data.

One of its key payloads, the Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR), is pioneering as the first instrument to map the lunar surface using L-band in full-polarimetric mode at the highest resolution (25m/pixel).

This sophisticated radar mode transmits and receives signals in both vertical and horizontal directions, making it particularly effective for studying lunar surface properties.

The space agency reported that since the mission's launch, approximately 1,400 radar datasets have been collected and processed to create detailed polarimetric mosaics of both north and south polar regions (80 to 90 degrees latitude) of the Moon.

Scientists from the Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad have utilized these datasets to develop advanced data products revealing the potential presence of water-ice, surface roughness, and important electrical properties such as the dielectric constant, which characterizes features like density and porosity of the lunar surface.

ISRO emphasized that the algorithm for analyzing the full-polarimetric data has been developed indigenously, with all data products generated by the organization itself.

These advanced data products are particularly valuable for gathering preliminary information about the Moon's polar regions, which are believed to have preserved the early chemical conditions of our solar system. Such information provides important clues to explain various aspects of planetary evolution.

This type of ready-to-use data on lunar polar regions has been highly sought after as it provides comprehensive information to characterize these regions for future exploration. The products complement hyperspectral data in studying the distribution of minerals on the Moon.

ISRO further detailed that the polar mosaics include key radar parameters that reveal physical and electrical characteristics of the Moon's surface and subsurface.

The derived Polar Mosaic products (Level 3C) have been released for users and are freely available on the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) PRADAN website.