Will the Earth's Tail Fry Moon Visitors?

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers working for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth's magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth's 'magnetotail' for six days every month — during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in 'The Moon and the Magnetotail.' So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, 'Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.' But read more for additional details about how Earth's magnetotail could affect men on the moon."

All I know

[Bastard of Subhumani (827601)]

All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month!

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Meh. That is what towels on the bed and a shower after is for. You're getting ripped off.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Not that he'll understand, he probably doesn't get any tail for the other 24 days either.

Re:

[that IT girl (864406)]

Oh, that's nasty D:

Re:All I know

[by Anonymous Coward]

who said you could leave the kitchen? Go make me a sandwich sweetie.

Re:All I know

[that IT girl (864406)]

Spoken like a true anonymous coward.

Re:All I know

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

She works in IT. She dosen't make sandwiches, she makes the coffee, you insensitive clod!

Re:All I know

[that IT girl (864406)]

Haha! And people wonder why more women don't take an interest in computers. It's not the computers they're afraid of, it's putting up with all the comments like this... Good thing I can handle it -flex- :D

Re:All I know

[that IT girl (864406)]

Oh, of course. In fact, I'm secure and know I'm good at my job, so generally I find these comments pretty funny. Especially knowing some of the women that I work with who I just know HAD to have gotten where they are through... unscrupulous means. Nevertheless, it's not exactly a welcoming environment for the average lady, no matter how savvy. ;)

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

The interesting thing is that, before we replaced the job with machines, computation and computer science was dominated by women. It was one of those few "acceptable careers."

Maybe it's just that I pay more attention to this area more than others, but it seems like IT in general is an unfriendly place to be. It's fairly elitist in almost every aspect. This is the same complaint of a lot of people moving to linux, women in the industry, and foreigners in the US. There's very much a "who let /you/ in here?" a

Re:

[Jarjarthejedi (996957)]

I find it quite amusing personally. Perhaps if you were more secure in the fact that Women can be incredible engineers and supremely intelligent people, and not just foodmakers, you'd be able to get the joke as well.

Poking fun at stereotypes is only amusing to people who aren't racist or sexist. To those who are it tends to seem offensive. I'm perfectly willing to crack disability jokes, if the person I'm talking to knows I'm kidding and won't be offended. Same goes with racist jokes (me and my friends have

Re:All I know

[somersault (912633)]

There was a Scotsman, an Englishman and an.. oh wait, you probably wouldn't get it anyway..

For the record, I think the GP sounds like he has a decent sense of humour, and you're just scared of upsetting people. Personally I think there's a lot of humour to be found in stereotypes, as long as it is the ironic kind and not just vicious racism and the like. I don't mind people making jokes about my ethnicity (Scottish), the fact that I am not a morning person, blah blah blah.

There have been people at my work who do seem genuinely bigoted and in those cases, your talk of avoiding confrontation and such is valid, but the GP doesn't sound like a bigot. And as an aside, how on earth do you think that weight is 'beyond the control' of the subject (unless they perhaps aren't physically well enough to do exercise). If you get regular exercise and don't eat junk then it's going to be pretty difficult for your body to pile on the pounds. I have a pretty good metabolism (I recognise that some people put on weight more easily than others, I'm 14 stone/196 pounds, 6'2", my sister goes crazy whenever I suggest I'm getting 'fat', because I'm not :p ), but I also am trying to keep more of a reign of my appetite these days. FFS, I hate political correctness so much..

Re:

[Jarjarthejedi (996957)]

"I prefer to treat them and others the way I prefer to be treated myself: with respect."

My friends and I have a habit of showing respect through joking. I once confused a teacher by getting in a huge joke argument with one of my best friends, which had us both laughing and the teacher wondering how we could be friends and be so mean to one another.

"These conditions do not apply to everyone and you assume too much"

They apply to myself and those I consider friends. Ergo we all enjoy such jokes (especially jab

Re:

[AdamTheBastard (532937)]

Anonymous Coward is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

Re:All I know

[budgenator (254554)]

All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month!

on the moon the tail gets you, 6 days a month

Re:

[monoqlith (610041)]

And all I know is....I also don't get any tail the other 24 days.

Re:

[eclectro (227083)]

All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month!

Dude, you get tail?!?! What moon are you from??

Re:

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

My preferred option for those 6 days is to have a hot standby.

If we want to go to the moon

[Daimanta (1140543)]

We need to test this if we go to the moon. Well that, or get mutant astronauts ;)

Re:

[arivanov (12034)]

Russian rovers have happily survived through it.

They were however idle during the night and ran on electronics which are considerably less prone to radiation problems.

Re:If we want to go to the moon

[arivanov (12034)]

Oops... Should have read it again before posting. The happy event happens during full moon when it is nicely lit by the sun so the rovers have indeed experienced it and none of them has observed any such wierd things. They were up there for months so I this is mostly likely not the kind of problem to worry about. It is least likely to be even close to the amount of radiation pounding a station will get during a solar storm.

Re:

[budgenator (254554)]

The moon is always nicely lit with sun light on one side; the reason the full moon is full is because the illuminated day side is facing the Earth's unilluminating night side. That also means that the moon is orbiting into the region that the solar wind "pushes" the magnetosphere toward, which is what creates the posible problem which is most likely worst on the nightside that isn't facing the Earth

Full Moon on Moon?

[$0.02 (618911)]

The moon stays inside Earth's 'magnetotail' for six days every month â" during full moon. Wouldn't that be full earth instead?

Re:Full Moon on Moon?

[frovingslosh (582462)]

No, it would be a "new Earth", which happens from the moon's viewpoint when Earth sees a full moon. A full Earth, from the moon's viewpoint, would happen two weeks later when the moon is "new" and not in the tail at all. Since a "new Earth" and a "full moon" happen at the same time, the full moon reference is perfectly correct and makes more sense.

Silly

[Robert1 (513674)]

"The ground, meanwhile, might leap into the sky. There's growing evidence that fine particles of moondust might actually float, ejected from the lunar surface by electrostatic repulsion. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts."

If this were the case, the entire moon's surface-particles floating above the planet 6 days each month, we would have alread

Ahem

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Just one example [nasa.gov] of what might go on that we can't see with regards to lunar dust storms. Took me all of a few seconds to find and there looks to be a lot more to read. Google is your friend.

Re:

[Pete (big-pete) (253496)]

If this were the case, the entire moon's surface-particles floating above the planet 6 days each month, we would have already seen it. If not with naked eyes then with telescopes. We can see localized dust storms on Mars, I can only imagine what a planet-wide de-surfacing would look like. Ridiculous.

Not only that - but moon-dust would be worn against itself, and would not be so abrasive, friction would have done it's work on the particles...

-- Pete.

Fix from article

[by Anonymous Coward]

"So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon" Fixed.

Re:Fix from article

[by Anonymous Coward]

"So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon" Fixed.

One reply seemed to take this seriously, not as a joke, so I'll bite too.

To believe that the moon landing never happened as per Fox documentary (oxymoron?) you would have to..

.. believe that Soviet and China was in on the conspiracy, at the height of the cold war when this was a major blow to them. They could easily have disproved a fake moon landing, and choose to let US revel in glory instead..?

.. believe that all the actual moon rock available to scientists and universities is... what?

That's just two Occams Razor points, not going into NASAs rebuttals [nasa.gov] against the so called photo evidence.

Not every month

[Geoffrey.landis (926948)]

Actually, the moon doesn't pass through Earth's magnetotail every month-- the moon's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic, so some months the magnetotail passes north or south of the moon-- it depends on season and precession.

Re:Not every month

[spazdor (902907)]

Quite right. Otherwise there'd be a lunar and a solar eclipse every month.

Re:Not every month

[by Anonymous Coward]

Even the most conservative estimate indicates the moon always passes through the magnetotail, because the earth's magnetotail is much larger than the earth's shadow. Here's my calculation. If I made a mistake, please correct me.

The Magnetotail is 20-25 Re(earth radii) across depending on season(minimum 10 Re in radius); much bigger than the shadow of the earth(2 Re). The moon's orbit is inclined 5% off the ecliptic(the plane of earth's orbit around the sun). The earth's magnetotail is essentially in this plane. The moon is at a distance of 405696 km at apogee (~60 Re). This means even at the point when the moon is furthest from the ecliptic plane (ie apogee is coaligned with the magnetotail) it will still fall inside the magnetotail.

60.24 * sin((5./180)*pi) = 5.25 Re < 10 Re

Thus, precession or no, the moon will always be in the magnetotail for at least part of each orbit. It would take extremely extraordinary(read: improbable) solar wind conditions to make the magnetotail thin to 5 Re.

Magneto Tail?

[that IT girl (864406)]

Am I the only one who can't get past the image of the villain from X-Men? ;)

Now we know.

[by Anonymous Coward]

But read more for additional details about how Earth's magnetotail could affect men on the moon."

That's why Jackie Gleason wanted to send ladies to the moon.

Mental image:

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

Crowd of corpulent Southerners at a Crawfish Tail Fry somewhere on the Redneck Rivera dropping trou' to moon a luxury liner passing by.

moot

[McGiraf (196030)]

This is moot, as we all know they will not make it thought the Radiation Belt anyway.

Re:

[McGiraf (196030)]

lol, interesting? wtf? Oh, and by the way, the earth is flat. Yup, seriously.

Easily Fixed

[Linker3000 (626634)]

Valid use for tinfoil hats found at last.

Will it harm them? Only if they're real.

[BorgCopyeditor (590345)]

Dude, visitors are real.

Safe Space Travel

[byronne (47527)]

Alas, the days where one could travel to the moon in comfort and safety are behind us. Now it is nearly as hazardous as trying to merge onto 294.

Giant, predictable magnetic distrubance?

[toastee (132341)]

Sounds like a great opportunity to harness the energy potential. this could very well be useful.

how about ISS?

[by Anonymous Coward]

why isn't the ISS affected by the "magnetic tail"? It has to pass trough it.

Simple Solution

[jeffkjo1 (663413)]

Imagine what it feels like to be a sock pulled crackling from a dryer. Astronauts on the moon during a magnetotail crossing might be able to tell you. Walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain, the astronauts themselves would gather a load of excess charge. Touching another astronaut, a doorknob, a piece of sensitive electronics -- any of these simple actions could produce an unwelcome discharge.

There's a simple solution to the excessive static discharge, all NASA needs to do is get a dryer sheet the size of Michigan. Plus, it would have the added bonus of being able to be used as a giant parachute, ala pre-school... think about how high you could bounce with that thing.

MegaMan

[kurtis25 (909650)]

Didn't we defeat magnetotail back in MegaMan 3 using our Plasma Buster?

Roland the Plogger again

[Animats (122034)]

It's Roland the Plogger, wrong as usual.

It's not like this is a newly discovered phenomenon. After all, there have been many unmanned moon landings and equipment has operated through the "magnetotail" many times. The USSR landed two lunar rovers, both of which worked for months. Lunokhod 1 was operational for 322 days, and Lunokhod 2 was operational for about four months. This was in the early 1970s.

Re:Roland the Plogger again

[Cecil (37810)]

This was in the early 1970s.

See, there's your problem. The magnetotail wasn't so big back then, because of the ozone hole and global warming and oprah winfrey. Also, gnomes did it.

Re:Roland the Plogger again

[1u3hr (530656)]

And Roland got his "for more information" link to his blog through again. Recently the editors have omitted these (though if you look in the firehose, Roland puts his spammy blog link in every submission).

Tagged "blogspam" and "fuckroland".

Electrostatic discharge ?

[d3m0nCr4t (869332)]

They are going to need one hell of a cable to earth that...

A name for this effect?

[Microsift (223381)]

So, while the Moon is positioned such that it reflects the Sun's rays back at earth, astronauts could get fried, would that be a Soleil Moon Frye?

This was brought up in 1956 then 2005:

[Fluffeh (1273756)]

A detailed look at this can be found in this link from Nasa [nasa.gov] on the topic of moon fountains, which is basically the exact same thing under a different name.