The complex stratigraphic structure of the Moon's farside imaged for the first time using subsurface radar.

Chang'e-3 (CE-3) has been the first spacecraft to soft land on the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The spacecraft arrived at Mare Imbrium on December 14, 2013, and the same day, Yutu lunar rover separated from lander to start its exploration of the surface and the subsurface around the landing site. The rover was equipped, among other instruments, with two lunar penetrating radar systems having a working frequency of 60 and 500 MHz. The radars acquired data for about two weeks while the rover was slowly moving along a path of about 114 m. At navigation point N0209, the rover got stacked into the lunar soil and after that only data at a fixed position could be collected. The low-frequency radar data have been analyzed by different authors and published in two different papers, which reported totally controversial interpretations of the radar cross sections. This paper is devoted to resolve such controversy by carefully analyzing and comparing the data collected on the moon by Yutu rover and on earth by a prototype of LPR mounted onboard a model of the CE-3 lunar rover. Such analysis demonstrates that the deep radar features previously ascribed to the lunar shallow stratigraphy are not real reflectors, rather they are signal artifacts probably generated by the system and its electromagnetic interaction with the metallic rover.

Due to its significance in astrobiology, assessing the amount and state of liquid water present on Mars today has become one of the drivers of its exploration. Subglacial water was identified by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency spacecraft Mars Express through the analysis of echoes, coming from a depth of about 1.5 km, which were stronger than surface echoes. The cause of this anomalous characteristic is the high relative permittivity of water-bearing materials, resulting in a high reflection coefficient. A determining factor in the occurrence of such strong echoes is the low attenuation of the MARSIS radar pulse in cold water ice, the main constituent of the Martian polar caps. The present analysis clarifies that the conditions causing exceptionally strong subsurface echoes occur solely in the Martian polar caps, and that the detection of subsurface water under a predominantly rocky surface layer using radar sounding will require thorough electromagnetic modeling, complicated by the lack of knowledge of many subsurface physical parameters. Higher-frequency radar sounders such as SHARAD cannot penetrate deep enough to detect basal echoes over the thickest part of the polar caps. Alternative methods such as rover-borne Ground Penetrating Radar and time-domain electromagnetic sounding are not capable of providing global coverage. MARSIS observations over the Martian polar caps have been limited by the need to downlink data before on-board processing, but their number will increase in coming years. The Chinese mission to Mars that is to be launched in 2020, Tianwen-1, will carry a subsurface sounding radar operating at frequencies that are close to those of MARSIS, and the expected signal-to-noise ratio of subsurface detection will likely be sufficient for identifying anomalously bright subsurface reflectors. The search for subsurface water through radar sounding is thus far from being concluded.

The lunar penetrating radar (LPR) onboard the Chinese Chang'e‐3 (CE‐3) mission obtained high‐resolution profile data for the continuous ejecta deposits of the Ziwei crater. Geological background suggests that the continuous ejecta deposits contain few large boulders, and the ejecta deposits were largely originated from the pre‐impact regolith. Using the top ~50 ns of radar data, we estimate the bulk density and porosity for the ejecta deposits based on hyperbolic echo patterns in the radargram that are caused by subsurface boulders. The physical properties are close to those of typical lunar regolith. Numerous subparallel and discontinuous short layers are visible in the radargram of the continuous ejecta deposits. The dielectric coefficients of the layering structures are estimated, and their permittivity is slightly larger than that of typical lunar regolith and less than that of basaltic rocks. Cratering physics together with the geological context of this area suggest that the layering structures are most likely ground gravels and/or melt‐welded breccias that were sheared due to the horizontal momentum of the impact ejecta. This interpretation is indicative of the origin of the enigmatic layering structures in regolith core samples returned by the Apollo and Luna missions. The results also highlight the importance of ejecta emplacement in shaping the structure of lunar regolith.

The China France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSAT) was launched on October 29, 2018, and is equipped with two sensors: a space-borne rotating fan beam scatterometer (CSCAT) and a space-borne surface wave investigation and monitoring (SWIM) radar. The CSCAT is dedicated to monitoring sea surface winds (SSWs), and the SWIM radar is designed to measure surface ocean waves. In this study, CSCAT SSW products during global tropical cyclones (TCs) were validated using wind data from multiple sources, including European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWFs) reanalysis (ERA5), cross-calibrated multi-platform (CCMP), soil moisture active passive (SMAP), WindSat, HY-2B, advanced scatterometer (ASCAT), and buoy wind. Wave parameters (significant wave height (SWH), dominant direction, and wavelength) were validated using wave data from ERA5, Jason3, and the HY-2B altimeter. The results show the following: 1) errors of the CFOSAT wind speed (WS) and SWH increase with the enhancement of TC intensity; 2) the WS accuracy of wind vector cells (WVCs) near the nadir is better than that at the nadir and the edge of the swath; 3) the wind direction (WD) correlation between the CSCAT and ERA5, ASCAT, and WindSat is more obvious at high WSs (>20 m/s) than at lower WSs (< 6 m/s); 4) the accuracy of the SWIM off-nadir SWH product is lower than that of the nadir SWH; and 5) a triple collocation comparison among the CFOSAT SSW, ERA5 SSW, and WindSat SSW indicates that the CFOSAT SSW provides the best performance.