The Moon And The Magnetotail

SPX ^ | 21 Apr 08 | Dr. Tony Phillips

[RightWhale]

Take a walk on the dark side of the moon.

[LIConFem]

Self-zotting moon?

[outofsalt]

We must stop this Earthogenic lunar rape! I will sell lunar-ion credits to any one wishing to help raise awareness!

[DManA]

This was Arther C. Clark's pet peeve - there is no dark side of the moon. There is a near and a far side of the moon.

[outofsalt]

Here is one you’ll like,
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept99/MoonCore.html

[#1CTYankee]

"But on the nightside, in the cold lunar dark, electrons accumulate and voltages can climb to hundreds or thousands of volts."

Send up a giant capacitor, collect it and bring it back.

Just kidding. ;-D

[Bigg Red]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[SlowBoat407]

I recently shared a flight to DFW with a researcher who is looking for ways to deal with this phenomenon in future lunar habitats. It made for a short flight, and I think he was surprised that I actually understood what he was talking about. (My father spent 30 years as a NASA engineer).

[RightWhale]

The moon base is now being designed for six months of habitation. They will also be putting a base on the far side and the lunar habitat mockup is being designed to deal with static electricity. Might be a bigger story than it seems at first.

[SlowBoat407]

The big issue that the guy on my flight was addressing was the dust that would cling to just about anything, and its abrasive properties. He was trying to devise ways of countering the charge so the dust would not cling to habitat surfaces.

[RightWhale]

The dust gets on and in everything. One of the first Apollo astronauts, maybe Aldrin, said it smells like gunpowder.

[SlowBoat407]

High sulfur content?

[RightWhale]

Don’t knpw. Seems to be mostly refractory material, glass kind of stuff, rock dust.

[Fractal Trader]

Electric Universe material?

[Swordmaker]

Electric Universe Ping!

If you want on or off the Electric Universe Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Hegemony Cricket]

So, is the moon half-full, or is it half-empty?

[fightinJAG]

Very interesting!

[RightWhale]

Electric Universe material?

No. Real science.

[Fred Nerks]

The roller coaster of charge would be at its most dizzying during solar and geomagnetic storms. "That is a very dynamic time for the plasma sheet and we need to study what happens then," he says.

AT THUNDERBOLTS FORUM:link

[SunkenCiv]

Number 36 (Story #5), May 31, 1991 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
Physics News Update
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
http://webster.aip.org/enews/physnews/1991/split/pnu036-5.htm

THE MOON HAS A COMET-LIKE COMA AND TAIL . Michael Mendillo of Boston University, reporting at this week’s meeting of American Geophysical Union in Baltimore, showed that the moon has a tail, consisting of sodium gas, extending at least 15,000 miles away from the lunar surface. The sodium, Mendillo believes, is released from lunar rocks by meteorite impacts and is later dissipated into space where it is formed into a tail by the force of solar radiation.