Speaker
Description
Muon tomography is a promising method for future Mars and Moon missions, due to it’s spectacular penetration depth, low energy consumption and the unique information it can provide. The study on the feasibility of muography on other planets and moons has to start with understanding the cosmic muon production on these planetary bodies. Cosmic muons on Earth are generated in the atmosphere above ~15 km altitude as a result of a cosmic radiation induced particle shower where pions and kaons decay into muons. Due to the vastly different environments on Mars and the Moon, muon tomography may have very different capabilities on these planetary bodies compared to Earth.
Our goal with this study is to assess the possibilities and challenges of conducting muon tomography measurements on Mars and the Moon using cosmic-ray muons produced in the planetary atmosphere and rock. We carried out the simulation of the cosmic muon production and transport on Earth, Mars and the Moon using the Geant4 simulation toolkit. We found that although Mars has a much thinner atmosphere with a distinct chemical composition, the cosmic muon flux is comparable, or even higher than what we find on Earth, however the charged particle background is much higher. The muon production on the Moon takes place in the Moon rock, which significantly reduces muon production efficiency, leading to an up to 3 orders of magnitude lower muon flux under a flat surface.