Does the moon have wind?

[waxy]

I know the moon has no atmosphere to create that<br />kind of wind, and it doesn't have a global magnetic pole<br />(altough SOME of the surface does have magnetic rocks)<br />so it should be more vunerable to solar wind.<br /><br />Does the moon receive signifigant Solar Wind?<br />if so, would it POSSIABLY be enough to harness in some<br />sort of wind turbine like mylar sails harness the push of <br />solar wind? <br /><br />The thought occured to me last night and it'd make a <br />GREAT power souce for any moon base if it were <br />possiable.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

It would also interact with earth's magnetotail, depending on the time of the month.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Believe it or not, yes it does have a sort of atmosphere - a very tenuous one.<br /><br />NASA press release<br /><br />Michael Mendillo was one of my Professors, way back in the dark ages. Nice guy. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Does the moon receive signifigant Solar Wind?<br />if so, would it POSSIABLY be enough to harness in some<br />sort of wind turbine like mylar sails harness the push of<br />solar wind? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Yes, it does receive solar wind. This is a significant cause of weathering on the surface of the Moon; it causes material to darken with time, which is why young craters are brighter than old ones (and not just on the Moon; the effect is especially obvious on 433 Eros, where landslides have exposed fresh material). The Apollo astronauts also conducted experiments raising mylar sheets to collect solar wind particles -- a precursor to the Genesis mission, in many ways.<br /><br />This is presumably interrupted when the Moon passes through the Earth's magnetotail, the trailing part of the magnetosphere, which deflects a great deal of the solar wind.<br /><br />It's not very strong, though. You could, in theory, build a solar sail on the Moon, but I doubt it would be able to overcome friction, let alone turn enough to produce significant power. Compounding the problem, the sail will not be in a microgravity environment; the shaft will be pulled downwards within its housing, for instance, which will aggravate the friction problem. It would probably be more efficient to use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[waxy]

Wow, Yevaud, you seem to know all the links around here.<br /><br />Thanks for the answers, everyone. <br />And Calli, you are right, i didn't consider resistance.<br />Solar wind has alot of speed but almost no mass to apply a <br />sufficent force. it'd never turn a generator.<br /><br />i also realized that with the moon having a day and a <br />night it would never reach the full potential speed because<br />it'd keep stopping and have to start up again from scratch.<br /><br />even if it were a cool paddle-boat type of propeller. LOL<br />

 

[efron_24]

Not only does the moon has wind, there is a real storm every lunar morning.<br /><br />-=-<br /><br />Space.com :<br /><br />Every lunar morning, when the sun first peeks over the dusty soil of the moon after two weeks of frigid lunar night, a strange storm stirs the surface.<br /><br />The next time you see the moon, trace your finger along the terminator, the dividing line between lunar night and day. That's where the storm is. It's a long and skinny dust storm, stretching all the way from the north pole to the south pole, swirling across the surface, following the terminator as sunrise ceaselessly sweeps around the moon.<br /><br />Never heard of it? Few have. But scientists are increasingly confident that the storm is real.<br /><br />The evidence comes from an old Apollo experiment called LEAM, short for Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites. "Apollo 17 astronauts installed LEAM on the moon in 1972," explains Timothy Stubbs of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It was designed to look for dust kicked up by small meteoroids hitting the moon's surface." <br /><br />Billions of years ago, meteoroids hit the moon almost constantly, pulverizing rocks and coating the moon's surface with their dusty debris. Indeed, this is the reason why the moon is so dusty. Today these impacts happen less often, but they still happen.<br /><br />Apollo-era scientists wanted to know, how much dust is ejected by daily impacts? And what are the properties of that dust? LEAM was to answer these questions using three sensors that could record the speed, energy, and direction of tiny particles: one each pointing up, east, and west.<br /><br />LEAM's three-decade-old data are so intriguing, they're now being reexamined by several independent groups of NASA and university scientists. Gary Olhoeft, professor of geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, is one of them:<br /><br />"To everyone's surprise," says Olhoeft, "LEAM saw a large number of particles every morni <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[enigma10]

Considering the electrostatic quality of the storms, wouldn't the possibility of an electrostatic discharge be of more concern? Might we even find mini-lightning storms on the horizon of each dust storm,obscured by these dust plumes?<br /> <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"<font color="#333399">An organism at war with itself is a doomed organism." - Carl Sagan</font></em> </div>

 

[efron_24]

So many things we still don't know about the moon.<br />Just recently they found formations on the moon that might (many things we think we "know" about Luna, require the additation of the word "might") .. formations that might indicate vulcanic gas-releases in the last 1.000.000 years.<br /><br />This is a lot of years, true..<br />But previously it was thought that the last vulcanic burp at Luna was 3.000.000.000 years ago. So that is a difference <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> Sure is, that there are still Moon-Quakes (weak).. which indicates that the Moon has some activity.<br /><br />I think they need even better camera's on or near the moon to watch for this possible storm (I do not think wind blows, but it might be a mighty kick up of dust on the border of the black shadow (deep black it is !!) and the bright light. <br /><br />I always wondered by the way how long it takes for the ground to heat up after the long night from the freezing cold (as cold as Titan -188 celcius) to the amazing heat (over 200 celcius ?) Minutes ?<br /><br />Another thing is.. In the past, when the moon was a Magma ocean, there must have been hot gas everywere. Although there is not much gravity on the moon, it must have been a time of a denser atmosphere. It could not escape into space at once I think.. so in the early years of the moon, and during the t ime of the Heavy Bombardments, when the Mare came to existance, there MUST have been small clouds and wind.<br /><br />Saturn's miracle moon, with the Hot Steam Geisers (Enceladus) is much smaller than our moon, and the Geisers are spectecular but tiny compared to the enormous Lava Oceans of the young moon. Well Enceladus has a (thin) atmosphere (proberbly no wind), <br />Triton of Neptune does have vulcano's and wind !!<br /><br />So our moon must have had a thicker atmosphere in the past and perhaps wind.<br /><br /><br />As the Moon was MUCH MUCH closer to Earth.. this must have been a spectecular sight from our world (although .. it was pre <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[fingle]

Re: Where are the Rembrandts of today, who dare to draw this for us <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Have you heard of Durda ? I don't know if he does paintings on a dare he claims it is his hobby. Maybe he already has a painting of a tortured Luna.<br /><br />Here is one Mr. Durda painted call "Caldera" which is a seething caldera on an alien moon, thats kind of close.<br /><br /><br />Dan Durda's Home Page <br /><br /><br />fgl<br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>