Apollo 15 Lunar Dust Detector



Astronauts will be back on the moon by 2018, and the NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration is busy readying the mission. But, the NASA scientists are also worried that they’ll have to deal with lots of moon-dust. Walking on the moon between 1969 and 1972, the dozen Apollo astronauts were all surprised by how “sticky” moondust was. Fouling tools and spacesuits, dust got on everything. Equipment blackened by dust absorbed sunlight and tended to overheat. It was a real problem!



But, how to find a solution to this? Do grains of lunar dust truly become positively charged when illuminated by ultraviolet light? If so, which grains are most affected–big grains or little grains? And what does moon-dust do when it’s charged?



To find replies to these and help astronauts walk on the moon without facing the dust problem by 2018, Mian Abbas is busy examining a single mote of dust. The microscopic object of his rapt attention is not just any old dust particle. It’s moon-dust. Abbas in his laboratory, studies the same speck suspended inside a basketball-sized vacuum chamber for as long as 10 to 12 days. “Experiments on single grains are helping us understand some of the strange and complex properties of moon-dust,” says Abbas.



Via: Science Daily