The moon has a tenuous atmosphere that continually escapes and is being replaced by other particles from the sun and elsewhere. A landing probe might be expected to kick up dust and turn over surface material, releasing stuff to the atmosphere. The escape velocity of the moon is 2.4 Km/sec, so it is likely that most of the solid stuff might fall back, but most models might predict the gases would hang around for a bit, and LAYDEE could detect them.
It turns out that LAYDEE did not detect them. This does not mean that LAYDEE does not work or it was in the wrong position ‘too far from the landing site’: it was in a position where the best models of the day predicted a detectable signal, so not finding one is a significant result.
‘Significant’ is not the same as ‘important’. It adds a bit to human knowledge. It prompts us to get in closer the next time do a similar experiment, Every little bit of extra data helps a bit. But please take any ‘scientists are baffled’ ‘this re-writes everything’ hype with a pinch of NaCl.
