Subscription Center
Apr 20, 2009
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt called it the biggest environmental problem on the moon. His crewmate Eugene Cernan said it was "probably one of our greatest inhibitors" to lunar operations. What could pose such a dire threat? The pervasive, abrasive culprit: lunar dust.
The tiny grains cling to spacesuits and scientific instruments, causing myriad problems—clogging, abrasion, inhalation, obfuscation—for lunar visitors and the experiments they leave behind. In a new study using data from instruments installed on the moon in 1969, Brian O'Brien, a now-independent researcher in Floreat, Western Australia, and a former professor of space science at Rice University in Houston, determined that the angle of the sun in the lunar sky modulates the clinginess of the lunar dust. O'Brien's paper is set to be published in Geophysical Research Letters.
See what we're tweeting about
JenLucPiquant X-rays reveal how corsets put the squeeze on Victorian women http://t.co/dvqS3eBJuw
BoraZ Early Land Animals Lacked Good Bites http://t.co/UCpppiP7AU BoraZ Journal editors and their excuses https://t.co/kbq3k4paZP
Deadline: Jun 29 2013
Reward: $7,000 USD
The Seeker for this Challenge desires proposals for chemical methods that could rapidly degrade a dilute aqueous solution
Deadline: Aug 31 2013
Reward: $100,000 USD
The Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer’s Initiative (GBFAI) is launching the 2013 Geoffrey Beene Global NeuroDiscovery Challenge whose
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
