Mineral Abundances Inferred From In Situ Reflectance Measurements of Chang'E-4 Landing Site in South Pole-Aitken Basin

During its first two lunar day measurements, the visible and near-infrared spectrometer on board the Yutu-2 Rover of the Chang'E-4 mission acquired six in situ reflectance spectra from the floor of Von Karman crater within the South Pole-Aitken basin. A spectral lookup table search has shown that the regolith at the landing site contains 56-72% plagioclase, 9-28% orthopyroxene, 4-19% clinopyroxene, and 2-12% olivine, in relative abundance, in agreement with the results from Kaguya Multiband Imager mineral mapping. A mineral composition analysis using measurements made by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper and the Multiband Imager has shown that the surface materials of the landing site may have been ejected from the nearby Finsen crater. This result is also supported by principal component analysis which shows a strong correlation between the compositions of the landing area and Finsen crater. Plain Language Summary With its successful soft landing in South Pole-Aitken basin on the lunar far side, the Chang'E-4 mission measured six reflectance spectra during the first two lunar days. With these measurements, we obtained the mineral compositions of the landing site and identified the possible source location of regolith materials at the landing site, which may help us to uncover the mysteries of the formation of the South Pole-Aitken basin.