Lunar outgassing

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Outgassing events in which radon, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are vented to the surface, may be the result of low level volcanic or tectonic events on the moon, and are hypothesized to be the source of the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.

The Alpha Particle Spectrometer aboard Lunar Prospector was designed to detect these events by tracking the alpha particles emitted during the decay of radon and polonium (a daughter element in it's decay series). The APS data was obscured by solar activity during the mission, but may be viewable once the effects of solar activity have been filtered out. This task has not been done.