Chandrayaan 3 Discovery on Moon: Chandrayaan-3 Pragyan Rover’s second payload also confirms Sulphur | India News

BENGALURU: Days after one of the instruments on Pragyan, the Chandrayaan-3 rover had unambiguously confirmed the presence of Sulphur, another instrument onboard the rover has confirmed the presence of Sulphur in the region, through another technique.
“The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectroscope (APXS) has detected Sulphur, as well as other minor elements. This finding by Chandrayaan-3 compels scientists to develop fresh explanations for the source of Sulphur (S) in the area: intrinsic? volcanic? meteoritic?,” Isro said.
An accompanying video released by Isro shows an automated hinge mechanism rotating the 18cm tall APXS, aligning the detector head to be approximately 5cm in proximity to the lunar surface. This video was captured by the lander imager.

The Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad has developed APXS, while the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru, developed the deployment mechanism.
Isro further said that Chandrayaan-3’s scientific instruments were trying to find answers to questions such as “What are lunar soil and rocks made of in the south polar region where Chandrayaan-3 landed? How is it different from other highland regions?”

APXS instrument is best suited for in-situ analysis of the elemental composition of soil and rocks on the surface of planetary bodies having little atmosphere, such as the Moon. “…It carries radioactive sources that emit alpha particles and X-rays onto the surface sample. The atoms present in the sample in turn emit characteristic X-ray lines corresponding to the elements present. By measuring the energies and intensities of these characteristic X-rays, researchers can find the elements present and their abundances,” Isro said.
It added that APXS observations have discovered presence of interesting minor elements, including Sulphur, apart from the major expected elements such as Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron.
It is noteworthy that on August 29, Isro had said that in the “first-ever in-situ” measurements carried out in the lunar polar region, the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) instrument onboard Pragyan has unambiguously confirmed the presence of Sulphur in the lunar surface near the south pole.