No abstract

Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) is one of the important scientific instruments onboard the Chang'e-3 spacecraft. Its scientific goals are the mapping of lunar regolith and detection of subsurface geologic structures. This paper describes the goals of the mission, as well as the basic principles, design, composition and achievements of the LPR. Finally, experiments on a glacier and the lunar surface are analyzed.

Abstract.To quantify the ablation processes on a debris covered glacier, a simple distributed ablation model has been developed and applied to a selected glacier. For this purpose, a set of field measurements was carried out to collect empirical data. A morphometric analysis of the glacier surface enables us to capture statistically the areal distribution of topographic features that influence debris thickness and consequently ablation. Remote-sensing techniques, using highresolution satellite imagery, were used to extrapolate the in situ point measurements to the whole ablation area and to map and classify melt-relevant surface types. As a result, a practically applicable method is presented that allows the estimation of ablation on a debris covered glacier by combining field data and remote-sensing information. The subdebris ice ablation accounts for about 24 % of the entire ice ablation, while the percentage of the moraine covered area accounts for approximately 32 % of the entire glacierized area. Although the ice cliffs occupy only 1.7 % of the debris covered area, the melt amount accounts for approximately 12 % of the total sub-debris ablation and 2.5 % of the total ablation respectively. Our study highlights the influence of debris cover on the response of the glacier terminus in a particular climate setting. Due to the fact that melt rates beyond 0.1 m of moraine cover are highly restricted, the shielding effect of the debris cover dominates over the temperature and elevation dependence of the ablation in the bare ice case.