Posted 04.28.2010 at 10:20 am
5 Comments
The Inhospitable Lunar Surface
Maybe the moon isn't as inhospitable a place as we first thought when we landed there more than 40 years ago. First we found surface water at the lunar south pole, and now the the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 has found a miniature magnetic field on the moon's surface which could serve as a minimally protective barrier from the harsh solar winds that would greatly complicate habitation there.
The magnetosphere, which is about 224 miles wide, is more like the spotty magnetic fields on Mars. But astronomers think that while the magnetospheres scattered across the Martian surface are almost certainly leftover from a global magnetic field (like ours), it's less likely that the Moon's magnetism was spawned by a molten core.
Related Articles
Tags
Science, Clay Dillow, astronomy, lunar surface, magnetism, magnetosphere, moon, moon base, solar windFrom a future-tech standpoint, this is interesting because it would seem that if we did want to build a moon base at some point, we've found a 224-mile wide zone in which there is already limited protection from solar winds.
But researchers don't seem optimistic that this magnetosphere is the key to moon habitation. There's always a give-and-take in this universe, and in this case it comes back to water. The very magnetic phenomena that may be shielding this portion of the lunar surface from solar winds could also make it one of the driest places on the moon. We're not exactly sure where lunar water originates, but one theory is that it forms when solar protons bombard the surface, creating hydrogen atoms in the lunar soil. That's far less likely to happen in a magnetically protected harbor.
5 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Popular Tags
Science
|
|
|
|
|
|
June 2013: American Energy Independence
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.
Popular on Popsci
Most Commented
Science
- Scientists Create First Cloned Human Embryo
- State Drops Charges Against High School Student Arrested For Science Experiment
- Dear Schools: Stop Treating Science-Curious Kids Like Criminals
- Space Tourism's Black Carbon Problem
- Giving White People The Illusion Of Darker Skin Makes Them Less Racist
- Cold Fusion Machine Gets Third-Party Verification, Inventor Says
- What Modern Humans Can Learn From The Neanderthals' Extinction
- FYI: Do Wind Farms Make It Less Windy?
- How Do You Make A Painkiller Addiction-Proof?
- Untouched For The Last Billion Years, Water In Canadian Mine Holds Ingredients For Life
Most Emailed
Science
- The Moore, Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- The Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- Synthetic Biologists Engineer A Custom Flu Vaccine In A Week
- FEMA's 'Waffle House Index' Rates Moore, Oklahoma, At Disaster Level Yellow
- FYI: Could Climate Change Cause More (And Bigger) Tornadoes?
- FYI: Are Unvaccinated Kids Really Causing The Whooping Cough Resurgence?
- Climate Change Will Increase Heat-Related Deaths In NYC, Study Says
- Why Are Tornadoes So Hard To Predict?
- Scientists Reveal The Cause Of The Irish Potato Famine
- Reconstructing The Oklahoma Tornado From Start To Finish, In Videos
Most Viewed
Science
- The Moore, Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- The Oklahoma Tornado, From Space
- Synthetic Biologists Engineer A Custom Flu Vaccine In A Week
- FEMA's 'Waffle House Index' Rates Moore, Oklahoma, At Disaster Level Yellow
- FYI: Could Climate Change Cause More (And Bigger) Tornadoes?
- FYI: Are Unvaccinated Kids Really Causing The Whooping Cough Resurgence?
- Climate Change Will Increase Heat-Related Deaths In NYC, Study Says
- Why Are Tornadoes So Hard To Predict?
- Scientists Reveal The Cause Of The Irish Potato Famine
- Reconstructing The Oklahoma Tornado From Start To Finish, In Videos
Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email
Contributing Writers:
Rebecca Boyle | Email
Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2012 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Lets get started on the moonbases then!!
I would love to help somehow.
I think they were already talking about having a solar station in one of the permanently lit areas near the pole for energy. This same station could possibly power a water collection scheme and pump it down to a base inside this magnetic field.
I wonder about the further implications of this are in terms of geography. Earth has a magnetic field due to it's molten core moving constantly, so I wonder what is producing this field on that specific part of the moon.
this was so my idea! =P
WARNING SPOILER
"The very magnetic phenomena that may be shielding this portion of the lunar surface from solar winds could also make it one of the driest places on the moon."
hah
Gosh - It really is 2010, isn't it? And India has found a lunar surface magnetic anomaly field with a 224 mile diameter?
Somewhere in space, Arthur C. Clarke should be grinning right now: He postulated that aliens could leave artifacts with anomalous magnetic fields buried in the surface of the moon, so we would eventually find their handiwork.
The discovery of the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly (aka TMA-1) is the inciting incident that launches David Poole, HAL 9000 and the deep space explorer ship Discovery (XRD-1) to Jupiter space in Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY."
Perhaps, this finding could reverse President Obama's decision not to send NASA back to the surface of the moon, or worse, NASA already knew about this field from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter readings, suppressed the publication of the LRO tech report, and then quietly recommended that humans not return to the Moon in case we accidentally set off the penultimate pest alert alarm in the Solar System, as revealed by deep radar scans of the region.
Where there is a hint of cheese, there may be a mousetrap.
And, of course, India has no clue as to our concerns about space aliens and Gort's threatened return, since their epic Sanskrit poems revere gods with flying starships, called vimana's, and their death rays.
Then again, if I were Disney or Virgin Galactic, this could be a great vacation destination for space tourists!
If I were Bigelow Aerospace, I would be putting up a "future home of Budget Suites" sign on the entire magnetized region. That explains their April 14th, 2010, lunar colony announcement.
Where will Indiana Jones be tomorrow?