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from the the-answer-is-blowin'-in-the-[solar]-wind dept.
As millions on Earth enjoy a spectacular view of a supermoon on Dec. 14, a NASA-funded research team is reviewing the results of recent laboratory experiments that explain why dust "levitates" on the moon.
The research by a member of NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), hosted by NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, explains how dust may be transporting across vast regions above the lunar surface and rings of Saturn, without winds or flowing water.
Learning about these fundamental processes is helping scientists understand how dust and static electricity behave on airless bodies, and how they affect surface mechanical and electrical systems. This and other SSERVI research is helping NASA address key strategic knowledge gaps for airless bodies such as asteroids or the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, which are likely stepping stones along our journey to Mars.
The study builds on observations from the Apollo era to the recent Rosetta comet mission, and brings to closure a long-standing question about electrostatic dust transport seen on the moon and other airless planetary bodies. The research was conducted at the Institute for Modeling Plasma, Atmospheres and Cosmic Dust at the University of Colorado Boulder, and was published recently in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters.
An abstract is available.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @06:08PM
That was Super Moon. This will be Eternal Moon. Just wait for the SuperS arc when there's a giant plot hole in the upper atmosphere.