<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'> ... Hi Smersh, the moon does actually have an 'atmosphere' if you can call such a flimsy collection of rarified gasses that. The total mass of the lunar atmsophere is approx 25 Metric Tonnes (25,000 KG). It is patchy & densest over the shadowed polar craters & just before dawn, where it may reach a high densitiy of 0.0000000000001 Torr (760 Torrs = 1 Bar), so it is about the smae as a good laboratory vacuum. It's chief constituents are Helium, Hydrogen, Neon & Argon, with some CO2, Methane, Ammonia, Silicon, Oxygen (atomic Oxygen not molecular) Magnesium.So the moonm with a toal surface area similar to the whole North American continent (including the Caribbean & Mexico IIRC), with only 25 tonnes of of patchy 'atmosphere'. Better than Mercury, which is much larger with only 8 Tonnes!!!!!!!!!!The lunar atmosphere is thought to be sourced from the solar wind with some lunar outgassing.According to the twitter site linked to by centsworth_II (which I check regularly) looks like MIP did come down in Shackleton Crater as planned. ISRO seem to think that the Indian Flag survived the descent, although I do not know how they know that, although I really hope it did as a momento of India's amazing success with the country's first lunar landing.Andrew Brown. <br /> Posted by 3488</DIV></p><p>Cheers Andrew, I had a feeling it was something like that actually, but wasn't entirely certain what they meant. </p><p>I have a feeling that statement should have been explained better in the media reports though, (for education of the masses, if you like,) otherwise some people with no knowledge of astronomy, might get the idea that the Moon has a "regular-size" atmosphere! </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <h1 style="margin:0pt;font-size:12px">----------------------------------------------------- </h1><p><font color="#800000"><em>Lady Nancy Astor: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea."<br />Churchill: "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."</em></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>
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