Perspective

Microstructures of Lunar Agglutinates:  A meta-analysis of formation, deposition, and experimental modeling and simulation

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Abstract

Lunar agglutinates have been providing the research community with various opportunities of study for investigations in the microscale.  Since the end of the Apollo missions, agglutinates have been extensively studied for their benchmark indicator in soil regimes of the lunar regolith.  However, until very recently, the origin in terms of progenitor micrometeoroids and formation have been neglected.  This paper will showcase both previous and current research relating to and affiliated with these small-scale impact structures (125 um – 500 um) that are embedded with regolith grains of ~70 um mean size.  Recent advances in both hypervelocity studies and lunar regolith simulants have been allowing terrestrially-based experiment simulations to be conducted to better model or recreate agglutinate type of deposition.  This synthesis paper is a meta-analysis of current and preexisting studies that have been conducted on lunar agglutinates.  Future agglutinate research will focus on the origin of the impact melt by hypervelocity studies on regolith simulant.

Keywords: MNT Special Issue

How to Cite:

Yates, J., (2025) “Microstructures of Lunar Agglutinates:  A meta-analysis of formation, deposition, and experimental modeling and simulation”, The Journal of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering 1(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/jtmae.18458