The Lunar Environment Heliophysics X-ray Imager (LEXI) Mission

• DOI: 10.1007/s11214-024-01063-4
• Publication Date: 2024-05-14T16:02:34Z
• Authors: B. M. Walsh; K. D. Kuntz; S. Busk; T. Cameron; D. Chornay; A. Chuchra; M. R. Collier; C. Connor; H. K. Connor; T. E. Cravens; N. Dobson; M. Galeazzi; H. Kim; J. Kujawski; C. K. Paw U; F. S. Porter; V. Naldoza; R. Nutter; R. Qudsi; D. G. Sibeck; S. Sembay; M. Shoemaker; K. Simms; N. E. Thomas; E. Atz; G. Winkert
• Keywords: Magnetosheath

Abstract The Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) is a wide field-of-view soft telescope developed to study solar wind-magnetosphere coupling. LEXI part of the Blue Ghost 1 mission comprised 10 payloads be deployed on lunar surface. monitors dayside magnetopause position and shape as function time by observing X-rays (0.1–2 keV) emitted from wind charge-exchange between exospheric neutrals high charge-state plasma in magnetosheath. Measurements are used test temporal models meso- macro-scale magnetic reconnection. To image boundary, employs lobster-eye optics focus microchannel plate detector with 9.1 $^{\circ }\times 9.1^{\circ }$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mo>×</mml:mo><mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/><mml:mo>∘</mml:mo></mml:mmultiscripts><mml:msup><mml:mn>9.1</mml:mn><mml:mo>∘</mml:mo></mml:msup></mml:math> field view.