Chennai, Oct. 19 -- India's Chandrayaan-2 Lunar Orbiter has made the first-ever observation of the effects of the Sun'sCoronal Mass Ejection (CME) on the Moon, with one of its scientific instruments Chandra's Atmospheric CompositionExplorer-2 (CHACE-2) onboard.
Observations from CHACE-2 showed an increase in the total pressure of the dayside lunar exosphere (very thin atmosphere)when the CME impacted the Moon.
The total number density (number of neutral atoms or molecules present in an environment per unit volume) derived from these observations showed an increase by more than an order of magnitude.
This increase is consistent with earlier theoretical models, which predicted such an effect, but CHACE-2 onboard Chandrayaan-2has observed s...