Lunar rusting is reported in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. Which sounds weird enough on the surface, but when you think the moon has no oxygen or liquid water – two things are needed to turn iron and iron-rich rocks into rust.
The mystery begins with the solar wind, the flow of charged particles that emanate from the sun, bombarding the earth and the moon with hydrogen. Hydrogen makes it difficult to make hematite. It is what is known as a reducer, i.e. it adds electrons to the material with which it comes in contact. It is the opposite of what is needed to make hematite: for corrosion from iron, it needs an oxidizer, which removes electrons. And while the earth has a magnetic field that protects it from this hydrogen, the moon does not.
“It’s very surprising.” [Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii] Said. “The moon is a terrible environment for hematite to form.” So he turned to JPL scientists Abigail Freeman and Vivian Sun.3No data and confirm the discovery of its hematite.
“At first I didn’t believe it completely. It shouldn’t be based on the conditions on the moon,” Framman said. “But since we discovered water on the moon, people have been speculating that if water were to react with rocks, we might have a larger number of minerals than we thought.”
Upon closer inspection, Freman and Sun became convinced3Its data actually indicate the presence of hematite at the lunar poles. “In the end, Spectra was definitely hematite-bearing, and no explanation is needed as to why it is on the moon,” Sun said.
This strange phenomenon needs further research. But for now, his leading theory is that oxygen from Earth can ride on the planet’s own magnetic field, which is no joke even as a magnet with enough speed to travel 239,000 miles on a magnet. It is possible that oxygen could have traveled billions of years ago, when the Earth and the Moon were close to each other.
Current working theory also shows that the Earth’s magnet can occasionally block solar wind currents from certain parts of the moon, which would otherwise carry hydrogen which leads to oxidation and corrosion. And then of course, when there is no one known Liquid Water on the Moon – is the third part of the rusting puzzle Ice:
Lee has proposed that dust particles that regularly flow to the moon can release water molecules on this surface, mixing them with iron in the lunar soil. Among these effects heat id can increase the oxidation rate; Dust particles themselves also carry water molecules, planting them on the surface so that they merge with the iron. Only during the right moments – that is, when the moon is exposed to the solar wind and oxygen is present – can a rust-induced chemical reaction take place.
The universe is wild.
The moon is rusting, and researchers want to know why [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology]
The earth is rusting the moon [Jessie Yeung / CNN]
Image: Public domain by Pixario
