Oxygen From Earth's Atmosphere May Be Traveling To the Moon's Surface (theverge.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: New research shows that oxygen from Earth could be journeying all the way out to the Moon, where it then gets lodged inside the lunar soil. It's a process that's likely been happening for 2.4 billion years, ever since oxygen formed around our planet, meaning the Moon's soil may contain trapped particles from Earth's ancient atmosphere. This oxygen exchange, detailed in a study published today in Nature Astronomy, supposedly occurs for just a few days during the Moon's 27-day orbit. Most of the time, the Moon is constantly being blasted with solar wind -- fast streams of charged particles emanating from the Sun. But for five days of every lunar orbit, the Moon passes into Earth's magnetotail, the portion of the planet's magnetic field that stretches outward away from the Sun. This tail shields the Moon from the solar wind, and allows charged oxygen ions from Earth to travel to the lunar surface, according to the study. That means the Moon -- a dead rock incapable of supporting life -- is being showered with the byproducts of life here on Earth. In fact, the source of most of the oxygen in our atmosphere is biological, created by plants during photosynthesis. It's a process that experts have suspected for a while but haven't been able to confirm until today. Researchers have also suggested that other atmospheric components, such as nitrogen and noble gases, are getting to the Moon this way based on lunar soil samples.
Re:Intriguing (Score:5, Funny)
Monsanto is planning to sue the moon if any pollen from their corn get there.
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Monsanto is planning to sue the moon if any pollen from their corn get there.
Cheesus! That's insane! Can't we put up some sort of membrane?
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Sure, but let's use an easy-to-remember combination for the locking shield.
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That's the same combination I have on my luggage!
Too soon?
and waterbears (Score:2)
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What's really funny is that this could be the truth.
Some viruses are thought to be small enough to escape the Earth's atmosphere. Bacterial spores are considerably larger, but still small enough that the panspermia hypothesis --that life on Earth was originally seeded by space-borne spores-- is a viable concept (not necessarily true, but cannot be dismissed by anything within current scientific knowledge). When you consider that the upper atmosphere is under constant bombardment by meteors, there is enough
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Nothing a yuge wall can't handle!
And the moon will pay!
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That's no moon...
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All of the oxygen was made in the sun.
More correct would likely had been to say "in the stars" or "in some star" if it's ok to talk about single oxygen molecules. ..
Whatever that's good enough or if "as nuclear waste" would be the better claim
Re:stupid yank (Score:4, Insightful)
go look up what plants do
What plants do does not include creating oxygen from other elements with nuclear processes. That's why you're an AC troll and we're not.
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Plants produce oxygen via nuclear fusion?
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I don't usually respond to AC posts, but yours is kind of cute in an ugly troll doll sort of way. Go ask your Grandma what an ugly troll doll looked like.
Unless plants are doing some form of cold fusion that has yet to be discovered, they are not producing oxygen. They are simply moving existing oxygen from one molecule to another.
Please refrain from mixing up chemistry and nuclear physics. Better yet, please refrain from posting on slashdot until you know the difference between the different fields of sc
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I don't know what plants do, but I do know they crave electrolytes.
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I thought oxygen was heavy enough that it was only formed in supernovas? That the fusion process in normal stars could not produce elements that heavy?
Or is it that oxygen formation is now considered the borderline between what a living star can produce and what requires a supernova's environment?
I'm behind in my knowledge of astrophysics. I never got beyond reading layman level material, and for several decades I've been distracted by other things. So what is the current thinking about stellar fusion pro
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I don't know.
Should just go with nuclear waste.
Uh oh. (Score:2)
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Just a matter of time. I'm betting in the next 100 years.
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Better be careful. I hear the moon is a harsh mistress. TANSTAAFL.
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They probably will go after the lunar dust first.
That thing is abrasive as hell, and probably useful in some industry.
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They probably will go after the lunar dust first. That thing is abrasive as hell, and probably useful in some industry.
True, that.
Early lunar habitats will be built of cinderbrick and mortar made from regolith. It is very likely that a strong enough construction material can be made by simply sifting the regolith for the right size particles, adding water, and pouring the slurry into forms.
It probably won't even need to be baked. If baking is necessary, then that can be easily done in solar ovens using batch processes on a two week schedule.
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Early lunar habitats will be built of cinderbrick and mortar made from regolith
No, there won't be any lunar habitats because they are hugely expensive, and rather pointless.
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No, no, no, you've got it all backwards.
With the tremendous amount of raw material on the lunar surface, intense solar power, and reactionless engines, there will not only be huge penal colonies providing cheap labor to the regolith cement factories, but habitats at the Lagrangian points and deep space probes will be built of concrete.
Do you really think all those objects in the asteroid belt are natural? Did it never occur to you that some of those near Earth orbit objects might be used by the bug eyed
Ban it! (Score:1)
Clearly the moon is robbing us of resources without contributing anything back. It poses an existential threat to our way of life. I would like president Trump to look into this personally and takes steps to ensure that this theft of our resources does not happen again. Perhaps a fourth month ban on moon cycles until a reasonable course of action can be decided upon?
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Is it getting stuffy here? (Score:2)
/dev/zero >
Hmm... (Score:2)
Maybe in some strange parallel universe, this will be the next habitable piece of rock in the solar system.
As the Moon spins out from Earth's gravity, it collides with a large asteroid, heating the Moon, warming up, starting planetary thermodynamics, releasing all this stored "stolen" life giving elements into the space around the Moon, but kept in place by its' new gravitational strength.
Then ultimately picked up by the sun in just the right spot...
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What "new" gravitational strength are you talking about? If Ceres were to collide with Luna, Luna's gravity would hardly be changed. Hell, if the entire Asteroid Belt were to collide with Luna, you might see a 5% increase in Lunar gravity. Maybe....
How Long? (Score:2)
How long would it take for an oxygen ion to make that trip? How fast are these particles moving? Wouldn't it have to be within that five day period while the moon is shielded?
Obvious application (Score:2)
OK, somebody finds a way of sending all our excess CO2 to the moon, fast.
Clearly (Score:1)
The Monolith needs to breathe too.
Gas Layers (Score:2)
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Kinda reminds me of a 70's idea (Score:2)
At some point in the 70's, astronomers believed that normal planetary formation processes, for a planet of similar size and composition as Earth, would inevitably lead to a very dense atmosphere like Venus. Earth ended up with a small atmosphere because it had a giant, close-orbiting moon that "stripped away" particles from the very edges of the atmosphere. Therefore we should be thankful for this giant moon, which is probably very rare for a planet the size of Earth.
(in fact Asimov says in one of his later
Oxygen Creation (Score:2)
Polluting the environment (Score:2)
Just one more way we are polluting the environment! The EPA needs to get on this stat!
Actually, maybe NASA could convince people this is a legitimate problem so they will get behind funding a moon base.
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What? Who cares about Earth's oxygen on the moon! I just want a moon base!
Are we supposed to be surprised? (Score:2)
The news about the oxygen leaving the atmosphere dated from last September. So, were they expecting that the oxygen leaving would try to avoid the gravitational pull of the moon or something?
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The news about the oxygen leaving the atmosphere dated from last September. So, were they expecting that the oxygen leaving would try to avoid the gravitational pull of the moon or something?
What would happen next? They'll find out that some oxygen reach the sun?