NASA Admits to Storms and Dust Clouds on the Moon

It seems that NASA has decided after many years to share something with us...

Something they have known about since Surveyor took the images...

MOON STORMS 12.07.2005

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.

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.

Never heard of it? Few have. But scientists are increasingly confident that the storm is real.

Astronauts may have seen the storms, too. While orbiting the Moon, the crews of Apollo 8, 10, 12, and 17 sketched "bands" or "twilight rays" where sunlight was apparently filtering through dust above the moon's surface. This happened before each lunar sunrise and just after each lunar sunset. NASA's Surveyor spacecraft also photographed twilight "horizon glows," much like what the astronauts saw.

What could cause this? Stubbs has an idea: "The dayside of the moon is positively charged; the nightside is negatively charged." At the interface between night and day, he explains, "electrostatically charged dust would be pushed across the terminator sideways," by horizontal electric fields.

So after all the years it seems NASA is ready to give credibility to all those sightings of clouds on the Moon that they have tracked in their TLP catalog.

It's really funny though that NASA has a link to where to get that TLP NASA publication... the link is to MUFOR (bottom of page under "More Information)

science.nasa.gov...

But thought they do say 'atmosphere' in many of the reports here, they have a new and different explanation..

Levitating Moon Dust....

Continued Next Post...

MOON FOUNTAINS March 03, 2005

In the early 1960s before Apollo 11, several early Surveyor spacecraft that soft-landed on the Moon returned photographs showing an unmistakable twilight glow low over the lunar horizon persisting after the sun had set. Moreover, the distant horizon between land and sky did not look razor-sharp, as would have been expected in a vacuum where there was no atmospheric haze.

But most amazing of all, Apollo 17 astronauts orbiting the Moon in 1972 repeatedly saw and sketched what they variously called "bands," "streamers" or "twilight rays" for about 10 seconds before lunar sunrise or lunar sunset. Such rays were also reported by astronauts aboard Apollo 8, 10, and 15.

Above: On the left are lunar "twilight rays" sketched by Apollo 17 astronauts;
on the right are terrestrial crepuscular rays photographed by author Trudy E. Bell.

Here on Earth we see something similar: crepuscular rays. These are shafts of light and shadow cast by mountain ridges at sunrise or sunset. We see the shafts when they pass through dusty air. Perhaps the Moon's "twilight rays" are caused, likewise, by mountain shadows passing through levitating moondust. Many planetary scientists in the 1970s thought so, and some of them wrote papers to that effect (see the "more information" box at the end of this story for references).

But without an atmosphere, how could dust hover far above the Moon's surface? Even if temporarily kicked up by, say, a meteorite impact, wouldn't dust particles rapidly settle back onto the ground?

Well, no--at least not according to the "dynamic fountain model" for lunar dust recently proposed by Timothy J. Stubbs, Richard R. Vondrak, and William M. Farrell of the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"The Moon seems to have a tenuous atmosphere of moving dust particles," Stubbs explains. "We use the word 'fountain' to evoke the idea of a drinking fountain: the arc of water coming out of the spout looks static, but we know the water molecules are in motion." In the same way, individual bits of moondust are constantly leaping up from and falling back to the Moon's surface, giving rise to a "dust atmosphere" that looks static but is composed of dust particles in constant motion.

Sunset Rays sketched by Apollo 17 Astronaut

There could be "significant horizontal electric fields forming between the day and night areas, so there might be horizontal dust transport," Stubbs speculates. "Dust would get sucked across the terminator sideways." Because the biggest flows would involve microscopic particles too small to see with the naked eye, an astronaut would not notice dust speeding past. Still, if he or she were on the Moon's dark side alert for lunar sunrise, the astronaut "might see a weird, shifting glow extending along the horizon, almost like a dancing curtain of light." Such a display might resemble pale auroras on Earth.

From a 1961 JLP/NASA report...

Astronauts need to know, because in the years ahead NASA plans to send people back to the Moon, and deep dark craters are places where they might find pockets of frozen water--a crucial resource for any colony. Will they also encounter swarms of electric dust?

science.nasa.gov...


The Science Papers...

Continued next post...

A DYNAMIC FOUNTAIN MODEL FOR LUNAR DUST. T. J. Stubbs, R. R. Vondrak and W. M. Farrell,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA

During the Apollo era of exploration
it was discovered that sunlight was scattered at the
terminators giving rise to “horizon glow” and “streamers”
above the lunar surface [1,2] (e.g., Fig. 1). This
was observed from the dark side of the Moon during
sunset and sunrise by both surface landers and astronauts
in orbit. These observations were quite unexpected,
as the Moon was thought to be a pristine environment
with a negligible atmosphere or exosphere.
Subsequent investigations have shown that the sunlight
was most likely scattered by electrostatically charged
dust grains originating from the surface

www.lpi.usra.edu...

Just one of several papers from the early 1970s hypothesizing that the twilight glows photographed by the Surveyor landers and the "lunar rays" seen by the Apollo 17 astronauts were due to suspended lunar dust was "Evidence for a Lunar Dust Atmosphere from Apollo Orbital Observations" by J. E. McCoy and D. R. Criswell, Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, volume 5, page 475, (1974).

This article mentions that the dust clouds can reach as high as 100 kilometers

Another was "Surveyor Observations of Lunar Horizon-Glow," by J. J Rennilson and D. R. Criswell, The Moon 10: 121--142 (1974).

Images from Surveyor...

Surveyor 1



Surveyor 6



BTW This is the Image that Hoagland uses for one of his "Glass Dome" pictures

Now all this time skeptics have told us we are crazy for having seen clouds in images on the Moon... and now NASA comes along and not only confirms the clouds... but has a far out explanation to boot...

Moon Fountains of Levitating Moon Dust reaching to 100 kilometers and creating beautiful sunset and sunrise rays and "aurora like" glowing skies

I wonder what they will reveal next?


[edit on 8-12-2007 by zorgon]

" 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." (Science@NAZA)

Man, you sure coulda fooled me. This looks like a gigantic explosion.

Ah come on John... give them a chance... at least we finally have them saying "Clouds" and even "Storm" I mean they have a lot of catching up to do...

They also offer some more advise... seems its not good to breath Moon Dust...

Don't Breathe the Moondust

When humans return to the Moon and travel to Mars, they'll have to be careful of what they inhale.

April 22, 2005: This is a true story.


In 1972, Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmitt sniffed the air in his Lunar Module, the Challenger. "[It] smells like gunpowder in here," he said. His commander Gene Cernan agreed. "Oh, it does, doesn't it?"

The two astronauts had just returned from a long moonwalk around the Taurus-Littrow valley, near the Sea of Serenity. Dusty footprints marked their entry into the spaceship. That dust became airborne--and smelly.

science.nasa.gov...




Smells like gunpowder!!!! Must be all that blasting going on up there...

I have known this for a few months now, but I was not aware of the magnitude of the phenomena. Man, that is moving a LOT of dust!

This explains another reason NASA wants to put a base at the south pole inside a crater. Because there is no dust storm there since it is in eternal night.

Zorgon, the clouds and other atmospheric artifacts you have been ridiculed for blindly assuming was evidence of a breathable atmosphere have been known for some time. This isn't new, nor does it have anything to do with an atmosphere in the sense that you and John portray it as.

Simply put, the electrostatic dust particles theory seems to be the most reasonable answer (and I know a little about electrostatics ) however it in NO WAY indicates anything about a breathable atmosphere on the moon, nor is it affected (I would imagine) by the minuscule amount of gases present near the surface.

Simply put, do you know how dust behaves in a vacuum? If so, then you can take some of your own pictures on the living moon site (not that I have ever, ah...er, visited that electronic weekly world news wannaba site....ah..er, lol) and prove there is no atmosphere (and we are talking atmosphere as you and John claim it, so lets not argue semantics here)

Look, I admire your digging stuff up in an attempt to bolster your opinion, however at least make sure that your digging stuff up that further promotes your conclusion at least. I know your smart enough to understand how this has little to do with some of the claims your making about the moon.

I like to wake up in the morning and sssttttrrrreeeeeeeeeeetttttcccccchhhhh.....

But never, have I attained this level of 'stretch'.....

For some odd reason, I don't interpret the use of "storm" in the quoted context to mean the same thing it does here in the Midwest.

Tempest in a teapot comes to mind.

Happy Holidays!!

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
Zorgon, the clouds and other atmospheric artifacts you have been ridiculed for blindly assuming was evidence of a breathable atmosphere

Actually NO I was showing clouds long before John told me about the possibility of a "breathable atmosphere" and the comments all were there are no clouds... there are no dust storms...

I don't find it at all surprising to find you now stating "Oh yeah it makes sense... we have know about this effect for some time..."

To be quite frank... its really ridiculous... If you knew so much about this dust phenomena then please explain to me why you did not present this as a counter argument before?

This is what I dislike most about those skeptics who do nothing but knock everything we say... But as you claim below... you know "a little about electrostatics".... and this theory of NASA's "SEEMS to be the most reasonable answer " Of course it does... LOL NASA told you so... and you would "imagine" the tenuous atmosphere NASA admits to has no effect? Well so what makes YOUR "imagination any more valid than mine?

Simply put, the electrostatic dust particles theory seems to be the most reasonable answer (and I know a little about electrostatics

) however it in NO WAY indicates anything about a breathable atmosphere on the moon, nor is it affected (I would imagine) by the minuscule amount of gases present near the surface.

you guys are really something Where in this presentation on Levitating dust storms did I mention "breathable atmosphere"? Thats why I put this in a separate thread... This thread is about CLOUDS

I know your smart enough to understand how this has little to do with some of the claims your making about the moon.

Your right I am... seems YOU on the other hand are not as smart as I gave you credit for... Sure it has little to do with SOME of the claims we make.. but it has EVERYTHING to do with the claims we have made of CLOUDS ON THE MOON. You guys scream for evidence... when I show you direct proof that NASA now says CLOUDS (even though their explanation of cause may be different...) you guys still scream foul

I have a feeling no matter what I present you would gain nothing... despite what you claim you know...

Please try to keep your personal prejudices under control a little...

Originally posted by MrPenny
For some odd reason, I don't interpret the use of "storm" in the quoted context to mean the same thing it does here in the Midwest.

Thats funny I don't see anywhere in the above documents how it is presented in context to Midwest weather conditions...

It seems your reading skills have slipped... either that or you guys are so set on attacking alternate ideas that you can't even see what the story is about...

You were one of the ones telling me how I should post well this one has nothing but reports from NASA... my only addition was that the reports justify claims of seeing clouds...

No where did I compare it to storms on Earth, no where did I offer this as proof or even evidence of a "breathable atmosphere"

But its the typical reaction I expected... Thank you both for helping me win the bet



[edit on 8-12-2007 by zorgon]

[edit on 8-12-2007 by zorgon]

From the NASA report on Moon Storms... in "more information" there is the following link...

"More recently, the Clementine spacecraft also recorded strange glows along the lunar limb."

CLEMENTINE
LIMB GLOW SHOTS
SEARCH FOR HORIZON DUST
BY DAVID O. DARLING



Close examination of the photograph below give strong indications of dust along the lunar limb. You can see along the entire edge of the disk regions that appearance knotted and swirled faint luminescence.




This photograph continued decline of solar illumination but you can still see the faint glowing cloud along the entire edge of the lunar disk.




With this photograph you can still see that the illumination along the lunar disk still remain in an illuminated state. The glowing area is most prominent along the mid section of the lunar limb.




The final photograph shows that the illumination along the limb continues to glow faintly along the entire lunar limb.

www.ltpresearch.org...
Reprinted with Permission


[edit on 8-12-2007 by zorgon]

SURVEYOR 7
HORIZON DUST GLOWS
THE FOLLOWING IMAGES WERE TAKEN BY SURVEYOR 7

Caption
Illumination along western horizon approximately15 minutes after local sunset.



Caption
Illumination along western horizon approximately 90 minutes after local sunset.



Caption
Same field of view of western horizon about 160 minutes after local sunset.

reply to post by zorgon


Every bit of the post I'm replying to here is composed of attack mode. You didn't genuinely address anything I or IgnoreTheFacts remarked on. You twisted, obfuscated, and generally avoided any direct attempt at discussion.

In fact, you stuck with your M.O. and simply dumped more content on the thread. Do you care to discuss how much dust may be floating just above the surface of the moon? You don't......it would make a shambles of your "clouds on the moon" bit.

Originally posted by zorgon
You were one of the ones telling me how I should post well this one has nothing but reports from NASA... my only addition was that the reports justify claims of seeing clouds...

With great scholarship zorgon. David O. Darling is not NASA. He is, what, an amateur astronomer? And his is the only, I repeat, the only above text that has the word "cloud"; other than your contributions.

Despite your protestations, not a single one of your above quotes from NASA or academic sources, uses the word "cloud".

Rubber band reasoning.

Your insults are getting old. Please try to address the topic.

[edit on 8-12-2007 by MrPenny]

...just wanting the 101 of 'accepted' science of the Moon, I looked at the Britannica definition, which seems to state there is an atmosphere:

Though the Moon is surrounded by a vacuum higher than is usually created in laboratories on Earth, its atmosphere is extensive and of high scientific interest.

During the two-week daytime period, atoms and molecules are ejected by a variety of processes from the lunar surface, ionized by the solar wind, and then driven by electromagnetic effects as a collisionless plasma. The position of the Moon in its orbit determines the behaviour of the atmosphere. For part of each month, when the Moon is on the sunward side of Earth, atmospheric gases collide with the undisturbed solar wind; in other parts of the orbit, they move into and out of the elongated tail of Earth's magnetosphere, an enormous region of space where the planet's magnetic field dominates the behaviour of electrically charged particles.

In addition, the low temperatures on the Moon's nightside and in permanently shaded polar craters provide cold traps for condensable gases.

www.britannica.com...

Originally posted by zorgon
A DYNAMIC FOUNTAIN MODEL FOR LUNAR DUST. T. J. Stubbs, R. R. Vondrak and W. M. Farrell,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA

During the Apollo era of exploration
it was discovered that sunlight was scattered at the
terminators giving rise to “horizon glow” and “streamers”
above the lunar surface [1,2] (e.g., Fig. 1). This
was observed from the dark side of the Moon during
sunset and sunrise by both surface landers and astronauts
in orbit. These observations were quite unexpected,
as the Moon was thought to be a pristine environment
with a negligible atmosphere or exosphere.
Subsequent investigations have shown that the sunlight
was most likely scattered by electrostatically charged
dust grains originating from the surface

www.lpi.usra.edu...

Just one of several papers from the early 1970s hypothesizing that the twilight glows photographed by the Surveyor landers and the "lunar rays" seen by the Apollo 17 astronauts were due to suspended lunar dust was "Evidence for a Lunar Dust Atmosphere from Apollo Orbital Observations" by J. E. McCoy and D. R. Criswell, Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, volume 5, page 475, (1974).

This article mentions that the dust clouds can reach as high as 100 kilometers

Another was "Surveyor Observations of Lunar Horizon-Glow," by J. J Rennilson and D. R. Criswell, The Moon 10: 121--142 (1974).

Images from Surveyor...

Surveyor 1



Surveyor 6

BTW This is the Image that Hoagland uses for one of his "Glass Dome" pictures

Now all this time skeptics have told us we are crazy for having seen clouds in images on the Moon... and now NASA comes along and not only confirms the clouds... but has a far out explanation to boot...

Moon Fountains of Levitating Moon Dust reaching to 100 kilometers and creating beautiful sunset and sunrise rays and "aurora like" glowing skies

I wonder what they will reveal next?


[edit on 8-12-2007 by zorgon]

me thinks mr penny needs to read the link in this post zorgon; i just read

the file and it does plainly state that dust 'clouds' can reach a 100km. in

height altho i am sure the midwest storms are so much more spectacular;

after all, they did take dorothy to oz.

Originally posted by the seeker_713g
i just read the file and it does plainly state that dust 'clouds' can reach a 100km. in height

Not so plainly....here what the article says, verbatim;

The possibility of optically significant concentrations of dust at 100 km altitude is not inconsistent with presently available observations of dust at lower altitudes.

Definitive? No. Not even close. That's not even close enough to bet on.

How 'bout if someone defines "cloud" in the context being discussed here? After all, the Large Magellanic Cloud is something far different than what we imagine a typical "cloud" to be. Is a temporary diffusion of lunar dust due to electrostatic gravitation a cloud in the sense that a thunderhead is a cloud? Or is it a cloud in the sense of a barroom and its haze of smoke? Better yet, how 'bout the results of Milton Berle yelling for makeup?....That always cracks me up when he gets pasted with that huge powder puff. An enormous "cloud" of powder floats around him.

Finally, is it being postulated that any "clouds" on the moon are being generated by atmospheric or weather activity?

Just cut to the chase. Go ahead and post large reams of quotes and links....what are you trying to say?

[edit on 8-12-2007 by MrPenny]

ahh, mr penny, to verbally joust with thee would lead to a long,drawn out

off topic affair; let it rest that a cloud, as you say,can range from uncle

miltie's powder puff to infinity, and the descriptive word cloud is

subjective to the parameters of the user; i myself tend to take anything

nasa chooses to share with us with a grain of salt and a large can of bs

repellent. but,my comrade, that is my opinion and applies only to me.

thanks for the reparte'.

OK, so here is my two cents on what a "cloud" is:

the localized accumulation of particles, usually secondary to electrostatic induction.

No, there are no thunderheads on the moon. That is just silly. The atmosphere up there is nothing like that of Earth. You are trying to overly narrow the definition in order to denigrate Zorgon, et al's position.

If you look on Mars you will see huge dust clouds, as well. These, too, are electrostatic in nature. The solar activity combined with the iron rich soil (and the likely briny water locked in the soil acting as an electrolyte) creates quite a bit of electric activity, and we see the entire planet become shrouded in red dust.

You are from Missouri? I am willing to bet that you have seen one or two dust storms, being that it is cotton country. Out here in West Texas, during the summer, you can see hundreds of HUGE dust devils swirling across the red, iron rich cotton fields, over 15k feet high. This is usually a precursor to an evening of really bad hail and thunderstorms. When you fly into Midland from Dallas during a summer afternoon, the turbulence can be excruciating.

Weather of all sorts is driven by the sun. The sun is an electrical phenomenon (yes, you may argue with that, but it is my belief), and therefore our solar system displays various levels of this electrical phenomena. Each and every body within our local system plays along the same electrical rules, and each has its own weather and local atmosphere created and driven by this electrical generator. Ours, here on Earth, is a leaky dipole.

The Magellenic cloud, too, is electrical in nature. But that is a whole other story, i suppose. Regardless, it, too would be classified as a cloud in just the same way a thunderhead would be. Just composed of different materials with different properties.

Originally posted by MrPenny
In fact, you stuck with your M.O. and simply dumped more content on the thread.

Funny but I don't see these posts you are referring to... In case you hadn't noticed this is a new thread... and the pdf files and articles linked to make it very clear how much dust and reaching as high as 100 km according to one study...

I really do believe you are loosing it their Mr Penny...

As to my "M.O" of more content... LOL That's what I get 'paid' for. Please be so kind as to show me your content and explain how it is better

reply to post by zorgon


And again....not discussing the topic, moving directly into attack mode. Nothing in your post was particularly germane to the discussion.

Regardless, thank you for the contribution.

Happy Holidays!!