Solar Wind Neon from Genesis: Implications for the Lunar Noble Gas Record

Abstract

Lunar soils have been thought to contain two solar noble gas components with distinct isotopic composition. One has been identified as implanted solar wind, the other as higher-energy solar particles. The latter was puzzling because its relative amounts were much too large compared with present-day fluxes, suggesting periodic, very high solar activity in the past. Here we show that the depth-dependent isotopic composition of neon in a metallic glass exposed on NASA's Genesis mission agrees with the expected depth profile for solar wind neon with uniform isotopic composition. Our results strongly indicate that no extra high-energy component is required and that the solar neon isotope composition of lunar samples can be explained as implantation-fractionated solar wind.