Remote estimation of dielectric permittivity of lunar surface regolith using compact polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data

A new model has been developed to estimate the dielectric permittivity of the lunar surface regolith using S-band hybrid compact polarimetric SAR data obtained from Mini-RF aboard LRO. The surface regolith is modeled as a random medium consisting of elementary ellipsoidal particles smaller than the incident wavelength of S-band. The data, available in the form of Stokes vector, are used to derive a coherency matrix, under the reflection symmetry condition, whose elements are used to calculate the particle anisotropy parameter. Since the anisotropy is bounded by the dielectric permittivity, its relationship with the latter is used for the required estimation. The method is applied to compute the dielectric permittivity of Apollo 17 landing site in Taurus-Littrow valley and to a part of Sinus Iridum. The estimated mean dielectric permittivity values (2.87±0.31) and (3.04±0.31), respectively, are consistent with the previous estimates. The dielectric permittivity values have also been used to discern different units of regolith in both the regions. The advantage of our model is that it does not require any a priori knowledge about the density or composition of the regolith. The available data in the form of Stokes parameters are sufficient for the computation. The model predicts a thin layer of low density, porous fine grained dust on the lunar surface.