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A case for landing on the moon's farside to test nitrogen abundances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

J. Chela-Flores
J. Chela-Flores
Affiliation:
The Abdus Salam ICTP, I-34151, Trieste, Italy and Instituto de Estudios Avanzados, Caracas, República Bolivariana de Venezuela e-mail: chelaf@ictp.it
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Abstract

A high research priority in astrobiology is the search and eventual identification of biomarkers in the Solar System. In spite of numerous steps forward, lunar science remains largely disjoint from the main stream of astrobiology, but in recent years the Moon has begun to emerge as a novel target for astrobiologists. We discuss an overlap between lunar geology and terrestrial geomicrobiology that arises from analysis of lunar soils and some uncertainties in chemical evolution and the origin of life scenarios. Unexpected isotopic heterogeneity of nitrogen (N) was found to be remarkable in samples from Apollo and the Luna programme. Both the stable isotope geochemical data of the biogenic elements, as well as the noble gases trapped in lunar soils added valuable new and relevant data. These discoveries are potential sources of information on early Earth evolution. The elusive ratio of N's two stable isotopes 15N/14N has played a fundamental role in this research. The analysis of individual grains of ilmenite suggests that 90% of all the trapped N does not originate from solar wind (SW). We discuss the significance of these stable isotopes from the point of view of astrobiology in the light of the next generation of lunar exploration. We underline the high priority of testing the origin of non-solar N source trapped in the regolith of the lunar farside. In the proposals of new lunar missions, the characterization of the geochemistry at several lunar sites is a major objective. Some arguments are presented in favour of using novel space technologies in a search for biomarkers in geographical distinct lunar landing sites. We restrict our attention to one aspect of the science requirements for the forthcoming missions by focusing on a very limited objective: to take a closer look at the geochemical characterization of the chemical element N on the soils of the lunar farside.

Keywords

astrobiologykinetic micro-penetrator technologieslunar sciencenext generation of lunar explorationstable nitrogen isotope geochemistry
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 61 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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