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> blowing an engine nearly horizontal to the surface

I doubt that objects put in "orbit" with a periapsis of almost zero (launched from the ground) would stay in flight for too long.

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Well lunar gravity varies a huge amount by location, it may be possible for some of it to somehow end up in actual orbits, especially when it's intentionally done so.

But by the same token, those orbits will be unstable and the particles will quickly lithobrake.

Well probably, but they could also stay there perpetually.

No, as light pressure will push them out of frozen orbits.

How long would that take?!

Not long.

My understanding was that those variations in gravity ("mascons") rendered stable lunar orbits next to impossible. On Apollo missions, orbits degraded by many kilometers over the course of just a few days.

Interestingly, a researcher looking for probable impact sites found Apollo 11's ascent module could potentially still be in orbit. (Though, it's probably not.)

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-apollo-ascent-stage-orbiting-m...

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