Abstract The technique of X-ray fluorescence remote sensing plays a significant role in research related to the chemical compositions of the Moon. Here we describe the data analysis method for China’s Chang’E-2 X-ray spectrometer in detail and present the preliminary results about the first global Mg/Si and Al/Si maps of the lunar surface. Our results show that the distributions of Mg/Si and Al/Si correlate well with terrains on the Moon. The higher Mg/Si ratio corresponds to the mare regions while the lower value corresponds to the highland terrains. The map of the Al/Si ratio shows a reversed distribution compared with the map of the Mg/Si ratio.
Keywords Moon — planets and satellites: composition — techniques: spectroscopic — X-rays: general
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