Friday, September 19, 2008

Neutral Solar Wind Generated by Lunar Exospheric Dust at the Terminator

All the more reason for LADEE to launch alone,
allowing for a full mission:

Without exception, the astronauts who walked on the surface of the Moon confronted problems due to lunar dust: it adhered to clothing and equipment, it reduced visibility, and it caused difficulty breathing [e.g., see Stubbs et al., 2007a and references therein]. In fact, “the invasive nature of lunar dust represents a more challenging engineering design issue, as well as a health issue for [lunar] settlers, than does radiation” [Schmitt, 2006].

Furthermore, lunar dust may pose acute toxicity risks to astronauts [Liu et al., 2007; Park et al., 2006]. Evidence from Surveyor vidicon images of horizon glow [Rennilson and Criswell, 1974], as well as excess brightness in photographs of the solar corona taken by Apollo astronauts just inside the Moon’s shadow [McCoy, 1976] and Apollo astronaut observations of horizon glow and “streamers” immediately prior to orbital sunrise [McCoy and Criswell, 1974], all suggest that a substantial population of exospheric dust exists in the terminator.
Read the Study (and Abstract) HERE.
region of the Moon.

No comments: