Effect of Geomagnetic Field Reversal on the Transport of Oxygen Ions From the Earth's Ionosphere to the Moon

During the change of the Earth’s geomagnetic poles, the amplitude of the planet’s magnetic field decreases. Quadrupole components of the field begin to play an important role in the configuration of the magnetosphere. Due to this, the outflow of oxygen ions from the Earth’s magnetosphere increases. There is a hypothesis that a significant part of the lunar oxygen could get there during the reversal of the magnetic field. In order to test this hypothesis, the flight paths of oxygen ions O+ were numerically calculated. During the study, it was found out that the number of ions leaving the Earth’s magnetosphere does increase, but at the same time, the percentage of oxygen ions that reach the surface of the Moon is either an order of magnitude less than the dipole (0.01—0.1% for Bx imf = 0, Bz imf ̸ = 0), or comparable to the dipole (2% for Bx imf ̸ = 0, Bz imf = 0), ⃗ Bimf is the vector of the Interplanetary magnetic field.