  Thermal-infrared measurements of asteroids are crucial for deriving the
objects' sizes, albedos, and also the thermophysical properties of the surface
material. Depending on the available data, a range of simple to complex thermal
models are applied to achieve specific science goals. However, testing these
models is often a difficult process and the uncertainties of the derived
parameters are not easy to estimate. Here, we make an attempt to verify a
widely accepted thermophysical model (TPM) against unique thermal infrared
(IR), full-disk, and well-calibrated measurements of the Moon. The data were
obtained by the High-resolution InfraRed Sounder (HIRS) instruments on board a
fleet of Earth weather satellites that serendipitously scan over the Moon. We
found 22 Moon intrusions, taken in 19 channels between 3.75 micron and 15.0
micron, and over a wide phase angle range from -73.1 deg to +73.8 deg. The
similarity between these Moon data and typical asteroid spectral-IR energy
distributions allows us to benchmark the TPM concepts and to point out
problematic aspects. The TPM predictions match the HIRS measurements within 5%
(10% at the shortest wavelengths below 5 micron when using the Moon's known
properties (size, shape, spin, albedo, thermal inertia, roughness) in
combination with a newly established wavelength-dependent hemispherical
emissivity. In the 5-7.5 micron and in the 9.5 to 11 micron ranges, the global
emissivity model deviates considerably from the known lunar sample spectra. Our
findings will influence radiometric studies of near-Earth and main-belt
asteroids in cases where only short-wavelength data (from e.g., NEOWISE, the
warm Spitzer mission, or ground-based M-band measurements) are available. The
new, full-disk IR Moon model will also be used for the calibration of IR
instrumentation on interplanetary missions (e.g., for Hayabusa-2) and weather
satellites.
