The LUMIO mission is preparing for launch. This spacecraft should track the flashes that occur when meteors hit the surface of the Moon. Through this, scientists want to find out how often tiny cosmic bodies actually collide with it.
Observations of the Moon’s far side
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the Earth is constantly bombarded by literally tons of space debris every day. The larger debris forms what we know as shooting stars, and most of them burn up in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, throughout our planet’s history, giant debris has caused devastation unlike anything else seen on our planet. Tracking such objects is usually done from Earth, but a new mission developed by researchers from Italy has a novel idea – why not try to learn more about potential falling objects by observing how they fall on the far side of the Moon?
The mission, known as Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer, or LUMIO, is a 12U CubeSat weighing about 22 kilograms. Its primary payload is LUMIO-Cam, a visible-light camera designed to detect flashes of micrometeoroid impacts that it should track.
However, deployment of the satellite is associated with great difficulties, in particular the lack of a direct line of communication and the need for an automated navigation and control system. Since the Moon is literally between the CubeSat and any ground-based receiver that could send commands or receive data, it must reflect off a repeater satellite to do so.
Location of the lunar satellite
So far, all the typical asteroid and meteorite tracking missions are already in space, so why do we need another vehicle? The most interesting thing about LUMIO is its location – at the L2 Lagrangian point in the orbit of the Earth and the Moon. This means it is directly opposite the Earth on the far side of the Moon.
This arrangement has advantages and disadvantages, the Moon’s disk is much smaller than Earth’s, so LUMIO can cover the entire hemisphere and observe every collision with the Moon’s surface. It is important to note that most of the impact will be on the lunar surface itself, as the lunar atmosphere doesn’t provide enough energy to burn up a micrometeoroid before impacting Earth. That’s why the Moon is covered with so many craters.
Additionally, although it is commonly referred to as the “dark side” of the moon, the far side is illuminated half the time – and fully illuminated when we on the planet are experiencing a “young moon.” But when it’s dark on the surface of the Moon, it’s really dark, there are no lights that could be misinterpreted as an asteroid impact. The L2 point has the added advantage of not suffering from the “earth glow” of light reflected from the Earth, which could reduce the effectiveness of the LUMIO camera when trying to detect faint light streaks.
Capturing flashes with the LUMIO camera
LUMIO will also collect a lot of data, not all of which will be useful. Since the flashes it is looking for are very fast, the LUMIO-Cam will capture about 15 frames per second. On-board processing will then use an algorithm to sort the image to see if there are flashes present. The most interesting images will be sent back to Earth.
The number of micrometeoroid collisions with the lunar surface is estimated to be as high as 23,000 times per year for micrometeoroids weighing up to 30 grams. Even if LUMIO only observes half of this site, it will observe collisions several times a day. Each collision is a small glimpse into the types of debris that still exist in our local part of the Solar System, and perhaps what asteroids and comets they were originally part of.
There is a good chance that the LUMIO team will be able to collect this data as well, the mission has been accepted as a finalist in ESA’s Lunar CubeSat for Exploration (LUCE) SYSNOVA competition and is currently scheduled for launch in 2027. Once it enters a stable orbit, expect to see bright flashes on the Moon’s surface, which will appear regularly in new reports.
According to phys.org
