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First Detection of Extremely Enhanced Solar Wind Helium-3 Originated from the Lunar
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  • Xinyue Wang,
  • Aibing Zhang,
  • Linggao Kong,
  • Shenyi Zhang
Xinyue Wang
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Aibing Zhang
National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Linggao Kong
National Space Science Center, the Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Shenyi Zhang
Chinese academic of science
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Abstract

The first observations of 3He2+ density extremely enhanced to thousand times of average solar wind by SWID/Chang’E-2 is reported in this paper. The two events occurred near the lunar and the Lagrange L2 point respectively. The synchronized energetic electrons increasing can induce the lunar surface charging to a large negative voltage and produce the electron-impact double ionization of helium-3 in the exosphere. 3He2+ will converge to the lunar surface by the negative potentials, and fully pick up via non-resonance stochastic heating process by Alfvén wave of the solar wind. It indicates 3He2+ in the events can originate from the lunar and transport to L2. Besides SEP (solar energetic events), the increasing of energetic electrons occurs frequently in quiet time, so the loss of the lunar exosphere will be recurrent, and the ionosphere ion void may be formed.