During September 6-7, 2021, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) opened up its scientific discussions on Lunar Science to the people of the country, to engage the Indian academia, institutes, students, and people from all disciplines and walks of life, in the form of a two-day ‘Lunar Science Workshop & Release of Chandrayaan-2 Data’. The workshop commemorated the completion of two years of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter in the lunar orbit. The events were conducted in virtual mode. Chairman, ISRO / Secretary, DoS inaugurated the workshop and released the documents on Chandrayaan-2 science results and data products for utilization by the scientific community.  

The lunar workshop delivered the big news of bunch of discovery-class of findings by Chandrayaan-2. The mass spectrometer CHACE-2, in its pursuit to conduct first-ever in-situ study of the composition of the lunar neutral exosphere from a polar orbital platform, detected and studied the variability of the Argon-40 at the middle and higher latitudes of the Moon, depicting the radiogenic activities in the mid and higher latitudes of the Lunar interior. The discovery of Chromium and Manganese on the lunar surface, which are available in trace quantities, by the CLASS payload was announced. The observations of microflares of the Sun, during the quiet-Sun period, which provide important clues on the coronal heating problem of the Sun, were made by the XSM payload. The first-ever unambiguous detection of the hydration features of the Moon was achieved by Chandrayaan-2 with its infra-red spectrometer payload IIRS, which captured clear signatures of Hydoxyl and water-ice on the lunar surface. The Dual-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DF-SAR) instrument could study the subsurface features of the Moon, detected signatures of the sub-surface water-ice, and achieved high resolution mapping of the lunar morphological features in the polar regions. Chandrayaan-2 has the feat of imaging the Moon from 100 km lunar orbit with best-ever achieved resolution of 25 cm with its Orbital High Resolution Camera (OHRC). The Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC-2) of Chandrayaan-2, which is conducting imaging of the Moon at a global scale, has found interesting geologic signatures of lunar crustal shortening, identification of volcanic domes. The Dual Frequency Radio Sounding (DFRS) experiment onboard Chandrayaan-2 has studied the ionosphere of the Moon, which is generated by the solar photo-ionization of the neutral species of the lunar tenuous exosphere The lunar workshop delivered the big news of bunch of discovery-class of findings by Chandrayaan-2. The mass spectrometer CHACE-2, in its pursuit to conduct first-ever in-situ study of the composition of the lunar neutral exosphere from a polar orbital platform, detected and studied the variability of the Argon-40 at the middle and higher latitudes of the Moon, depicting the radiogenic activities in the mid and higher latitudes of the Lunar interior. The discovery of Chromium and Manganese on the lunar surface, which are available in trace quantities, by the CLASS payload was announced. The observations of microflares of the Sun, during the quiet-Sun period, which provide important clues on the coronal heating problem of the Sun, were made by the XSM payload. The first-ever unambiguous detection of the hydration features of the Moon was achieved by Chandrayaan-2 with its infra-red spectrometer payload IIRS, which captured clear signatures of Hydoxyl and water-ice on the lunar surface. The Dual-Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DF-SAR) instrument could study the subsurface features of the Moon, detected signatures of the sub-surface water-ice, and achieved high resolution mapping of the lunar morphological features in the polar regions. Chandrayaan-2 has the feat of imaging the Moon from 100 km lunar orbit with best-ever achieved resolution of 25 cm with its Orbital High Resolution Camera (OHRC). The Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC-2) of Chandrayaan-2, which is conducting imaging of the Moon at a global scale, has found interesting geologic signatures of lunar crustal shortening, identification of volcanic domes. The Dual Frequency Radio Sounding (DFRS) experiment onboard Chandrayaan-2 has studied the ionosphere of the Moon, which is generated by the solar photo-ionization of the neutral species of the lunar tenuous exosphere

The questions received from the academia, institutes and students were addressed by the ISRO scientists during the deliberations. A panel discussion provided the opportunity to academia, institutes and students to interact with the ISRO scientists on lunar science and Chandrayaan-2. The participation of the community was encouraging and maintained the vibrant academic environment of the workshop.