Lunar Composition and Future NASA Missions
Lunar geochemistry is an important key to understanding how the Moon was formed. Two naturally radioactive elements, Potassium and Thorium, are present in different quantities on the interior and exterior of the Moon. This presentation examines Lunar Prospector elemental maps over the equatorial regions of the Moon to determine changes in Potassium, Thorium, and the ratio of the two. Both Thorium and Potassium are found to be higher in the Mare region of the Moon, but the ratio of Potassium to Thorium is found to be lower. This indicates that, possibly, the more volatile Potassium was lost faster in the Mare region than on the other portions of the Moon.

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