Will the Earth's Tail Fry Moon Visitors? 166
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."
Not every month (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Full Moon on Moon? (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not every month (Score:4, Informative)
Roland the Plogger again (Score:5, Informative)
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:Not every month (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Roland the Plogger again (Score:5, Informative)
Tagged "blogspam" and "fuckroland".
This was brought up in 1956 then 2005: (Score:5, Informative)