Figure 6

Mean annual temperature of the lunar surface as a function of latitude according to results from the validated TWO model (Vasavada et al. 1999,2012) (black dots). The smooth curve represents a 6th-order polynomial (Eq. 12) fitted through the latitudinal temperature averages via a least-squares regression. The Moon mean annual global temperature, T _moon  = 197.3 K (marked by a horizontal dashed line) was estimated through integration of the polynomial (12) using formula (13).