Phillips, Deanna

Weber, Renee C.

NASA Technical Reports Server

Dr. Max Bonamente (UAH Advisor)
Acknowledgements
Heffels, A., Knapmeyer, M., Oberst, J., Haase, I., 2017. Re-evaluation of Apollo 17 Lunar Seismic Profiling 
Experiment data. Planet. Space Sci. 135, 43–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2016.11.007
References
Use a location algorithm that includes a velocity model for an entire 
lunation (lunar sunrise to sunrise) to locate thousands of events to 
compare location versus event types, origin time, etc. 
Future Work
Locations of thermal moonquakes with 1 
second misfit contours overlaid on high 
resolution LROC image with rocks indicated 
by purple arrows. 
D
Event arrival indicated by blue line and arrival time 
uncertainty highlighted in purple for geophones 1-4.
B
Best fit location and velocity of a sample LSPE event, on a 1-km grid 
centered on LSPE array.
C
One hour of LSPE data overlaid with HMM detections. Green 
lines indicate emergent events, red lines indicate intermediate 
events, and blue lines indicate impulsive events.
A
A. HMM produced false and missed detections but provide 
an first approximation of events within the LSPE data.
B. Seismic waves arrive at each geophone at different times 
with different arrival time uncertainties.
C. With four arrivals, we can locate the event and origin time 
assuming surface event with free velocity.
D. Using images of the Moon, we can correlate locations of 
event to physical surface to determine if they overlap with 
particular terrain features.
Results
Left: Apollo 17 LSPE geophone locations and 
the location of the lunar module. (Heffels et al., 
2017) Top right: Continuous LSPE data 
showing numerous thermal moonquakes. 
Bottom right: Analysis from HMM shows the 
three types of events broken down in 24-hour 
time bins for 8 months of data. The red curve is 
model temperature based on the solar flux. 
• Apollo 17 Lunar Seismic 
Profiling Experiment (LSPE) 
continuous data contains
numerous events associated 
with temperature fluctuations 
• A computer event recognition 
program (HMM) identified 
thousands of detections from 
August 1976 to April 1977.
• Three event types were 
classified determined by the 
waveform arrival; impulsive, 
intermediate, and emergent.
Data
By correlating the physical location of thermal moonquakes with lunar terrain features such as boulders, we 
will gain a better understanding of lunar surface processes on the Moon. 
Purpose
Deanna Phillips1, Renee Weber2
1. UAH Physics Department 2. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Thermal moonquake identification and 
localization from Apollo 17’s Lunar Seismic 
Profiling Experiment
11th Wernher von Braun 
Memorial Symposium
October 23 – 25, 2018
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20180007304 2019-08-31T18:16:08+00:00Z


Thermal Moonquake Identification and Localization from Apollo 17's Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment

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