Researchers at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg have received a rare sample of lunar rock (regolith) from a drill core taken during the Luna 16 mission from the Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz Space Exhibition a rare sample of lunar rock (regolith) from a drill core taken during the Luna 16 mission. Using a computerised X-ray tomography (CT) scanner, the team examined the sample and used the data to print 3D particle models at up to 1,500 times magnification. However, the data not only serves as a visual model of the sample for visitors to the space exhibition; it could also become a valuable database for scientific research in the future.
To date, only around 386 kilograms of lunar regolith have been brought back to Earth. Regolith samples are therefore available only in very limited quantities. “If these rare samples cannot be obtained, scientists have access to replicas, known as simulants, of the materials. However, these can only replicate some of the properties of regolith at a time, never all of them together,” explains Dr Ralf Ditscherlein from the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing (MVTAT). The scientific assistant discovered the sample of lunar rock by chance whilst visiting the space exhibition privately with his colleagues and requested permission to analyse it using the CT scanner.
“For the CT scan, the sample does not need to be removed from its container.
That was crucial in enabling us to borrow it in the first place. Whilst a CT scan does not provide direct quantitative information about the rock’s chemical composition, it does allow us to analyse the shape and size of around 150 particles. This information can be used to statistically describe the geometric properties of real lunar regolith and to derive more realistic models and simulants from it. This is being carried out in collaboration with our partners at the Institute of Stochastics at the University of Ulm and the Institute for Particle Technology (iPAT) at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Particle size and shape influence, for example, the materials’ flow, packing and compaction behaviour and are therefore of great importance for the design and evaluation of future processes for processing lunar regolith directly on the Moon.”
From a chance discovery to a valuable database
Further analyses of the samples are now planned. The team intends to publish the data obtained via Open Access. In addition, the results of the investigations are to be published and used in a collaborative project to validate simulation results based on regolith simulants. “In future, researchers will be able to compare the data from the more readily available simulants with the data from this regolith sample. Those who use the simulants are particularly interested in how well these artificial materials replicate the real materials and where the two differ. The newly acquired data from this rare chance discovery could therefore become a valuable database for science,” said Ditscherlein.
Regolith samples (regolith simulants) are always in demand whenever processes on the Moon are simulated and studied on Earth. At the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, for example, the research projects MiniRoxy and Roxy-Pathfinder. Using a technology patented by research partner Airbus and the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Applied Materials Research, a demonstrator on the Moon is set to produce oxygen from regolith. “The Institute of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy and High-Purity Materials and the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing at TU Bergakademie Freiberg are supporting the research; and, last but not least, students can even Space Resources programme”, explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Urs A. Peuker, Head of the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing.
Looking ahead to the next steps, he adds: “We are particularly pleased that our new Staff Member, Aswin Kunnathully, has now joined the team and can contribute the data obtained directly to the project’s ongoing work. We are very keen to see what insights we can gain from this serendipitous discovery for this and other projects.”
