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Toxic Moondust Bounces Like A Cannonball
Jotii writes "A new NASA article says that moondust fetched to Earth by Apollo 17 is now being studied. From the article: 'Zen-like, he studies the a single mote of dust suspended inside a basketball-sized vacuum chamber for as long as 10 to 12 days.' Moondust is apparently very static, and bounces like cannonballs. Another article from NASA emphasizes the dust's toxicity: 'In some ways, lunar dust resembles the silica dust on Earth that causes silicosis, a serious disease.'"
Um... Does anyone know the chemical composition of this dust? How different is it from the stuff you'd find on Earth, chemically speaking? I don't care what it does, I care what makes it up.
On a different note now, silica dust seems to me like it'd be basically glass or ceramic powder, and it makes intuitive sense that powdered glass would be very bad for the lungs. But couldn't any finely divided dust of materials with similar properties to silica be expected to cause a similar condition if inhaled over time? I'm thinking steel dust or granite powder, or something like that. It's not like asbestos, where the "toxicity" is really "carcinogenicity."
In fact, calling the dust "toxic" makes it out to be a poison, when it's really more of a severe and persistent irritant. To call this or asbestos toxic seems a bit misleading and sensational--not to understate the dangers, but you want people to understand why things are dangerous, and in what way. Dimethyl mercury is toxic by contact; phosgene is toxic by inhalation; I think that both do more than just irritate.
Saying that moon-dust is toxic because it could cause silicosis is like saying water is toxic becuase you can drown in it.
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As has been pointed out in a previous post, "calling moondust toxic because it can cause silicosis is like calling water toxic because you can drown in it." Moondust, it seems clear, also does not "bounce like a cannonball." Nothing bounces like a cannonball, just like nothing "oscillates like a cloud," or "crows like a football." In the light of these observations, I'm not quite convinced that it really is dust, or that it comes from the moon. Anyway, I'd like to nominate this for the Worst Headline 2005 Award.