LAUSR

Searching for water–ice in the lunar media has been a key issue in the moon explorations. Missions of mini-SAR and mini-RF SAR made compact-pol (polarization) measurements on lunar polar permanent shadowed region (PSR). High circular polarization ratio (CPR) data and a two-layer model were applied to studying if water ice in PSR could be retrieved. However, it has been studied that high CPR is not simply due to the presence of water ice, and the Campbell model is a degenerated half-space model, which confused final inversion. In this letter, using the mini-RF data on the PSR of Hermite-A crater on the north pole, a two-layer model with the Kirchhoff and small perturbation approximations is presented. It takes account of the surface-layering topography, which makes changes of local incidence and polarimetric base rotation. Our results do not support Calla’s conclusions based on the half-space model, suggesting that the inversion of mini-RF is not so straightforward in proving water–ice existence in the PSR media. It points out that the double- and high-order scattering of random volumetric scatters on the lunar surface might play a role, and high-resolution measurements and more elaborate modeling are needed for further studies.