Is John Lear right about atmosphere on the moon?

Well, this being my first post here..hopefully I've done this right.


Anyways, John Lear argued that there was a thin atmosphere on the moon, I wont ever know the real truth, unless I get to go there.

But..that being said. Jaxa had released that hi def imaging satellite to orbit the moon and supposedly take AMAZING pictures of it.

Since its release, there hasn't been many released "photos". There are some, and they are nice. But.

So the latest one is here:

Link to latest Jaxa (selene) image

Nice high def pic of the moon. Nice high def pic of the earth.
Nice pic of the stars...uh stars?? haha.

Anyways, if you copy the picture and use any viewer to zoom in.. Heck, even MSPAINT...You can see a thin line above the horizon of the moon. Its pretty faint. At first I thought it was the "thin" atmosphere that John Lear talked about.
But then I noticed a similar line around the earth.

Could that be where they blacked out the stars too?

Why would they black out the stars?

The moon has an "atmosphere" but John Lear is not right about it. The moon's atmosphere is 0.00000000000030% (really! source) that of Earth's. It's more like a few molecules bouncing around here and there than an atmosphere.

The thin line you see in the Kaguya image is there because it is a jpg image. The line is a result of data compression and is not really there.

There are no stars visible because the surface of the moon (and the earth) is very bright compared to the stars. In order to take a photograph that shows the Earth and the moon, the amount of light that gets into the camera has to be reduced, enough that the stars do not show.


[edit on 29-10-2008 by Phage]

[edit on 29-10-2008 by Phage]

Got to love that perfect shot of Australia, Phage, i agree with you on most things, but im not sure if i make out your percentage ratio as correct. Anyway, great pic

reply to post by scubagravy


Fixed it.
See edit (I didn't make it up)

I don't know if Lear's right, but I do know NASA have told porky pies about many many subjects. They have seriously discredited themselves on many occasions, see Hoagland, although he is not always correct.
It's a minefield, to be sure.
The best way to make sense of it might be to check out Lear's sources.
Who does he reference?

If you look at the Moon through a telescope, you'll notice that there is a sharp divide between night and day (the terminator), that there is no fuzziness around the edge of the shadow. This proves that there is no atmosphere, or at least not one worth mentioning.

Thanks for the replies. Some good info for sure. I do kinda cringe a bit about not enough light, for the stars to register...to a point. I've seen pictures of a sunset, with a bright horizon..and stars above the horizon register. And that is through the filth of our atmosphere. But I don't really know enough about photography, to really argue the case.

Either way, I'm still looking for the one particular pic from that mission, when you inverted the colors...you could clearly see the black space was colored in. Perhaps to enhance the colors of the moon and earth in the distance. Not really sure.

But anyways, thank you!

It doesn't make much sense that there is no atmosphere on the moon. The popular theory is that our moon came to be from the accreation of the dust cloud that surrounded the earth after Theia collided into Earth. If this is true then the earth and moon contain the same stuff for the most part. It's said that gasses including evaporated water from comets or the collision would escape the moon because the moons gravitational force is too weak. This makes no sense. It would require some external gravitational force greater than the moon's, at the moon's surface. Gasses don't just get up and leave the gravitational field of the moon like, "hey guys Im going to take a trip to earth cause I don't weigh much". Although, I suppose the gasses could become solid?

reply to post by bad man incorporated


Just to play fair this is what John Lear has to say about it.

www.thelivingmoon.com...








[edit on 29-10-2008 by Malevolent_Aliens]

Added link to source. Please read Posting work written by others

[edit on 29-10-2008 by dbates]

reply to post by GlassRunner


It makes perfect sense there is no atmosphere on the moon. The gravity simply is too weak to hold the atoms on the moon. That's it.

This conspiracy theory is about 50/50 arrogance and ignorance - believers assume it must be a conspiracy because they know they are right, yet clearly know very little about the science at play.

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by GlassRunner

 

It makes perfect sense there is no atmosphere on the moon. The gravity simply is too weak to hold the atoms on the moon. That's it.

This conspiracy theory is about 50/50 arrogance and ignorance - believers assume it must be a conspiracy because they know they are right, yet clearly know very little about the science at play.

What is the force that is pulling them away? The earth?

The moon has enough gravity that it causes our high and low tides with it's pull on the ocean. So to say it doesn't have enough gravity to hold those atoms seems to be a weak argument.

If you wish to argue that the earths gravity overcomes the atoms on the moon and steals it's atmosphere, I might can go for that. But that is not what you say it is, that the moons gravity is to weak, it would be that the earths gravity overcomes that of the moons.

But that in itself poses it's own questions. How do other moons in the solar system have atmopheres. I just seen a headline about electrical forces(lightening) being detected on a moon of saturn.

Or is gravity not relative to mass now?


[edit on 29-10-2008 by badmedia]

reply to post by badmedia


No, nothing is pulling the atoms away from the moon, they are simply traveling too fast for the moon's gravity to keep them on the moon. Just as things on the Earth have an escape velocity (the speed required to beat the Earth's gravity and get something out into space), the moon does too. As the moon's gravity is so much weaker than ours, the moon's escape velocity is far less. Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s on the surface, and the moon's is 2.6 km/s. That difference means particles on the moon can just zip off, with only a few, slower-moving particles left behind.

Please read up on how gravity works - if you did, you'd know why the moon affects the seas yet can't keep an atmosphere. Gravity, as you said, is a function of relative masses. Water is a LOT heavier than your typical atmospheric gasses (hence the sea being under the air and not the other way round), hence the moon can exert a much greater influence on it. Gasses are far lighter, and traveling a lot faster, and so the moon has less effect on them and less time to affect them before they are gone. That is why the moon never kept its atmosphere (if it even had one) after it was formed - it just blew away.

Also, because the atmosphere is so light, and the moon doesn't have an ionosphere, solar winds will pick up any charged particles and simply carry them away.

Who's posting from arrogance and ignorance? You, I'm afraid. Please research these topics before you assume your knowledge of them is great enough to question great thinkers. It makes you, and this board, look silly. You apparently didn't even think to read this before asking such questions. Nice work denying ignorance, there.

Originally posted by badmedia

What is the force that is pulling them away? The earth?

Pushing it really. The solar wind . The moon has no magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from the solar wind. That, combined with low gravity results in no real atmosphere.


Aw nuts. Beat me to it.



[edit on 29-10-2008 by Phage]

Originally posted by dave420
No, nothing is pulling the atoms away from the moon, they are simply traveling too fast for the moon's gravity to keep them on the moon. Just as things on the Earth have an escape velocity (the speed required to beat the Earth's gravity and get something out into space), the moon does too. As the moon's gravity is so much weaker than ours, the moon's escape velocity is far less. Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s on the surface, and the moon's is 2.6 km/s. That difference means particles on the moon can just zip off, with only a few, slower-moving particles left behind.

Please read up on how gravity works - if you did, you'd know why the moon affects the seas yet can't keep an atmosphere. Gravity, as you said, is a function of relative masses. Water is a LOT heavier than your typical atmospheric gasses (hence the sea being under the air and not the other way round), hence the moon can exert a much greater influence on it. Gasses are far lighter, and traveling a lot faster, and so the moon has less effect on them and less time to affect them before they are gone. That is why the moon never kept its atmosphere (if it even had one) after it was formed - it just blew away.

Also, because the atmosphere is so light, and the moon doesn't have an ionosphere, solar winds will pick up any charged particles and simply carry them away.

Who's posting from arrogance and ignorance? You, I'm afraid. Please research these topics before you assume your knowledge of them is great enough to question great thinkers. It makes you, and this board, look silly. You apparently didn't even think to read this before asking such questions. Nice work denying ignorance, there.

That isn't what you said. You said the moons gravity was too weak to hold those atoms. As I said, that doesn't make sense in itself, there must be another force that keeps them from staying on there.

As for the water vs air deal. The moon does pull on the atmosphere as well as water. Your description for it pull more on the water because it is heavier isn't even close to being right. There is LESS pull/distance the water goes because it is heavier.

The solar wind bit makes the most amount of sense when combined with a weak electromagnetic shield that doesn't give it protection. Far cry from the moon not having enough gravity to hold the atoms.