New Delhi

The Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan has found the presence of sulphur near the south pole of the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organisation said.

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While conducting first-ever in-situ measurements on the elemental composition of the lunar surface, the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument onboard the rover found sulphur.

"These in-situ measurements confirm the presence of Sulphur (S) in the region unambiguously, something that was not feasible by the instruments onboard the orbiters," it said.

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Not only Sulphur, but the LIBS instrument also found the presence of aluminium (Al), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), and titanium (Ti) on the lunar surface. 

"Further measurements have revealed the presence of manganese (Mn), silicon (Si), and oxygen (O)," it said.

The rover is now conducting experiments to find the presence of hydrogen, ISRO said.

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Chandrayaan 3 shares first observations about moon's soil temperature

Also read | Chandrayaan-3 mission: Pragyan rover stumbles upon giant crater on Moon’s south pole

LIBS is a scientific technique that analyses the composition of materials by exposing them to intense laser pulses. A high-energy laser pulse is focused onto the surface of a material, such as a rock or soil. The laser pulse generates an extremely hot and localised plasma. 

Also read | Moon done, let's go study the Sun: ISRO to launch Aditya-L1 on September 2

The collected plasma light is spectrally resolved and detected by detectors such as Charge Coupled Devices. Since each element emits a characteristic set of wavelengths of light when it's in a plasma state, the elemental composition of the material is determined.

Other discoveries made by Pragyan rover

India's Chandrayaan-3, since its successful landing on the Moon on August 23, has been making several ground-breaking discoveries. Apart from stumbling upon giant craters in the south polar region, the Pragyan rover has also found massive temperature variations on the lunar surface.

During its observation of lunar top soil, the rover's ChaSTE (Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment) instrument found that the temperature on the surface of the Moon was around 50 degrees Celsius, and it increased to over 60 degrees at the height of 20mm. At minus 80mm depth, which is below the ground, the temperature dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius.

The ChaSTE measures the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the pole to understand the thermal behaviour of the moon's surface. It has a temperature probe equipped with a controlled penetration mechanism capable of reaching a depth of 10 cm beneath the surface. The probe is fitted with 10 individual temperature sensors

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