Heat Transfer in Lunar Rock

Abstract

It is suggested that radiative transfer may play an important part in the mechanism of heat flow in the lunar surface and a simple treatment of this process is given. Rough estimates are made of the magnitude of the contribution of radiative transfer, and it is found that this process could account for a considerable fraction and perhaps almost all the heat flow deduced from infrared measurements. Furthermore such a mechanism is of the right form to remove certain discrepancies which have been noted in infrared and microwave data.