Coronagraphic observations of the lunar sodium exosphere near the lunar surface

The sodium exosphere of the Moon was observed using a solar coronagraph to occult the illuminated surface of the Moon. Exceptionally dust‐free atmospheric conditions were required to allow the faint emission from sunlight scattered by lunar sodium atoms to be distinguished from moonlight scattered from atmospheric dust. At 0300 UT on April 22, 1994, ideal conditions prevailed for a few hours, and one excellent image of the sodium exosphere was measured, with the Moon at a phase angle of 51°, 81% illuminated. Analysis of the image data showed that the weighted mean temperature of the exosphere was 1280 K and that the sodium column density varied approximately as cosine‐cubed of the latitude. A cosine‐cubed variation is an unexpected result, since the flux per unit area of solar photons and solar particles varies as the cosine of latitude. It is suggested that this can be explained by a temperature dependence for the sputtering of sodium atoms from the surface. This is a characteristic feature of chemical sputtering, which has been previously proposed to explain the sodium exosphere of Mercury. A possible interaction between chemical sputtering and solar photons is suggested.