Advanced microstructural and compositional analysis of a lunar agglutinate from the Apollo 11 mission

Abstract

The microstructural characterization of lunar agglutinate samples serves many essential purposes in lunar science and cosmochemistry, from understanding the formation process of lunar regolith to preparing for human activity on the Moon. In this study, an advanced correlative characterization methodology was employed to examine the microstructure of a lunar agglutinate particle retrieved from the Apollo 11 mission. The multimodal characterization efforts were centered around 3-D x-ray computed tomography (XCT) and were complemented by 2-D techniques, including scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The nondestructive nature of the XCT allowed us to preserve the lunar dust particles, while its 3-D nature allowed us to extract meaningful microstructural information inaccessible via traditional 2-D characterization techniques. The multimodal correlative analysis further allowed us to identify the compositional and microstructural features of the agglutinate. These observations were linked to the formation process of the agglutinate to inform a hypothesis on the dynamic formation sequence of lunar regolith.