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Toxic Moondust Bounces Like A Cannonball

Posted by Zonk on from the all-i-want-for-christmas dept.

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.'"

31 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. I for one, by SauroNlord · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one welcome our statically bouncing moondust neighbours.

  2. flubber by know1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    whee, it's flubber! i bet those scientists had lots of fun. that is a long time for somehing to bounce, but i would imagine in a vacuum with no air resistance any bouncy ball would go on for a long time

  3. Previous Information? by lachlan76 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have any of the astronauts who were on the moon missions suffered from damage because of this? No doubt they would be exposed to it at some point during the mission...

    1. Re:Previous Information? by jcr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm totally sure the Apollo astronauts opened up their visors

      They did once they got back into the LEM. There certainly was an issue with moon dust inside the spacecraft.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Previous Information? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not only the silicosis issue, but the Moon is also unshielded from UV (and higher frequency) radiation. This tends to break up molecules on the surface of the dust and makes them very reactive.

      One of the worries on a Mars mission (similar UV situation to the Moon) is that if a persons skin comes in contact with rocks they will be burned (chemically). This is also the reason why it is extremely unlikely that life is observable in the first couple of millimeters of Martian soil. I would imagine that Moon dust has the same hazards.

      Of course if you are trying to breathe Moon dust you are either inside your capsule or have much greater worries that the chemical reactivity of the dust.

    3. Re:Previous Information? by andreMA · · Score: 4, Informative
      As I recall, either Armstrong or Aldrin noted a smell "like burnt gunpowder" in the LEM following the EVAs. This was attributed to the dust.

      As to health issues, isn't silicosis the result of chronic exposure? I doubt the dozen (18 if you count the guy in the CSM being exposed on the way home) folks with the most exposure were exposed to enough, for long enough, to have any impact.

      If/when we have a long-term presence on the moon, this may be an issue. I suspect one easily solved by taking a quick shower in the airlock on your way back in. Obviously you'd recycle the water, distilling it if need be to leave behind the dust. Though I suspect that in the presence of water and being allowed to sit a while, it might form a sludge that settles. Failing that, I'm sure there's something that could be added to bind it into a harmless solid.

      Filtering the air, electrostatic precipitation, etc. would also likely be a good idea.

    4. Re:Previous Information? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Informative

      As to health issues, isn't silicosis the result of chronic exposure?

      Silicosis is the result of chronic exposure to crystalline silica, and it was believed that the illness was caused by mechanical irritation and subsequent scarring (plaques) of the lung tissues. Amorphous silica was considered to be safe since its rounded aspect meant it could be removed by the body's macrophages relatively easily.

      We do know now though, there is a form of acute silicosis which is caused by inflammation of the lung tissues in contact with large amounts of silica (chemical toxicity). The onset is much more rapid (weeks or months instead of years) but it is likely it will be a treatable illness where chronic silicosis is not.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  4. Watch out NBA by NitsujTPU · · Score: 3, Funny

    If this dust bounces like canonballs, then the NBA will be ALL OVER toxic moondust basketballs.

    1. Re:Watch out NBA by Detritus · · Score: 4, Informative

      Cannonballs bounce nicely when fired from a cannon. I've read descriptions of American Civil War battles that noted how cannonballs gracefully bounced across the battlefield. Although fascinating to watch, they were still extremely dangerous to anyone in their path.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    2. Re:Watch out NBA by sweetnjguy29 · · Score: 5, Informative
      If everyone would RTFA, the actual quote is Eventually, the repulsive charges become so strong that grains are launched off the surface "like cannonballs" not "Moondust bounces like cannonballs" as the slashdot summary states.

      However, as the previous poster mentioned, cannonballs do in fact bounce. However, I doubt that it would be possible to actually see the bouncing cannon ball itself, as it is probably moving at least 300 m/s or so. (I imagine that most of the collisions were highly elastic...allowing a bounce) especially since archeologically recovered canonballs dont have too much damage to them. However, you could probably see the dust rising from where the canon ball is skipping...as well as the effect on any troops in the way. I remember watching a show on the Military Channel where they filmed different types of cannon shot...in slow motion...so you could see how the ball skipped/bounced and lost energy.

    3. Re:Watch out NBA by Perf · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I think you are assuming too much...

      Personal accounts by a Civil War era soldier (my great grandfather) say that the cannon balls looked like softballs bouncing across the field. He said that you would think you could put your foot out and stop it, but if you did, you'd lose your leg.

      Also, when the light is right, I've seen 22 bullets in flight. (22 Long Rifle) I was a doubter until someone showed me.

  5. Suggestion... by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think that if this study proves that moondust can be dangerous, any astronauts stationed to a moonbase should probably just stay inside. Or at least, cover their mouths while they're roaming around outside. No sense in risking your health by walking around outside on the moon without any kind of protection for your lungs.

  6. Re:If you find yourself breathing moondust... by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah.

    Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicolunarconiosis.

  7. Re:Bouncing like a cannonball by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That reminds me of one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

    "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

  8. I'm confused by presidentbeef · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't cannonballs bounce similarly to how lead balloons fly...?

    --
    Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
    1. Re:I'm confused by Potato+Battery · · Score: 4, Funny

      They tested it by firing it at a model of the USS Constitution carved out of a grain of rice. The moondust cannonballs were found to be much more effective at doing damage to the hulls of an armada of less-well crafted microscopic ships of war.

      I think the "cannonball" reference indicates the powers that be have let slip a little too much:

      • there is life on the moon
      • it has attained a level of technology roughly that of 16th century through 18th century Europe
      • they are very little
      • we are planning to fight them on their terms
  9. bounces like cannonballs? by OBeardedOne · · Score: 4, Funny

    Last time I tried to bounce a cannonball I was thrown off the team.

    --
    ogglelog
  10. Chemical makeup and toxicity by Wilson_6500 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Chemical makeup and toxicity by KingSkippus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, TFA mentioned it specifically as quartz.

      "You could eat it and not get sick," [Russell Kerschmann, NASA pathologist] continues. "But when quartz is freshly ground into dust particles smaller than 10 microns (for comparison, a human hair is 50+ microns wide) and breathed into the lungs, they can embed themselves deeply into the tiny alveolar sacs and ducts where oxygen and carbon dioxide gases are exchanged." There, the lungs cannot clear out the dust by mucous or coughing. Moreover, the immune system's white blood cells commit suicide when they try to engulf the sharp-edged particles to carry them away in the bloodstream. In the acute form of silicosis, the lungs can fill with proteins from the blood, "and it's as if the victim slowly suffocates" from a pneumonia-like condition.

      Ew.

      The thing that makes moondust more bothersome that earth quartz dust is that the moondust is charged by UV rays, which causes it to be a lot more sticky than quartz dust is here. Also, the cannonball reference was to the dust flying up off the surface of the moon, which means that the astronauts' spacesuits (and moonbase, once we build one) will be covered from above and below in the stuff. It'll be hard to keep the stuff out if the astronauts come and go often, and once in, it can wreak havoc on their health over the relatively short period of time of a few months.

  11. Zen-like, he studies the a single mote of dust... by Shanep · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are all our moondust belong to them?

    --
    War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
  12. statically bouncing by xfletch · · Score: 5, Funny
    I for one welcome our statically bouncing moondust neighbours

    I think the poster has grasped the less than clear point that 'bouncing like cannonballs' means not bouncing at all. Perhaps 'bounces like watermelons' would have been better, but then again 'melons' and 'bouncing' in the same sentence may have distracted some of our younger readers...

    1. Re:statically bouncing by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Informative
      I think the poster has grasped the less than clear point that 'bouncing like cannonballs' means not bouncing at all.

      Actually, the submitter seems to have mashed up the analogies in TFA to somethng unintellible.

      It says "In the lunar daytime, intense ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun knocks electrons out of the powdery grit. Dust grains on the moon's daylit surface thus become positively charged. Eventually, the repulsive charges become so strong that grains are launched off the surface 'like cannonballs,' says Abbas, arcing kilometers above the moon until gravity makes them fall back again to the ground."

      Note that the word "bouncing" does not appear anywhere.

  13. Re:layman-speak by KingSkippus · · Score: 3, Informative
    however i would respectfully request that scientists attempting to talk in layman terms update their terminology to something after the civil war

    God, that's funny.

    In NASA's defense, "bounces like a cannonball" was the submitter's phrase, not the article's. The article says:

    Eventually, the repulsive charges become so strong that grains are launched off the surface "like cannonballs," says Abbas, arcing kilometers above the moon until gravity makes them fall back again to the ground.

    This simile, while still perhaps antiquated, makes a lot more sense.

    /still imagining "bouncing" cannonballs...

  14. Moondust is toxic by brainwash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On the same NASA site, there's an article about the toxicity of moondust. It appears that because of its small particle size (10 microns), the moondust gets embedded into lungs, just like quartz used to do in the old mining days, causing silicosis.
    The astronauts did inhale some of the moondust, with effects similar to a hay fever.
    Not only that, but the dust is statically charged because of the Sun and lack of humidity, so it will stick to just about anything, causing abrasion.
    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22apr_dont inhale.htm
    There are plans to build a "microwave lunar lawn mower" that will melt the dust into something useful and stop it from bouncing.
    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/09nov_lawn mower.htm

  15. Toxic? Nonsense! by YuppieScum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Saying that moon-dust is toxic because it could cause silicosis is like saying water is toxic becuase you can drown in it.

    --
    This sig left unintentionally blank.
  16. Incidently... by Skiron · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Apollo 17 landing film is truly great to watch; the excitement in the astronauts voices shows what it really means for man to land on the moon:

    Landing at Taurus-Littrow

  17. Re:Zen-like, he studies the a single mote of dust. by lxs · · Score: 5, Funny

    Moondust bounces high
    Suspended in emptiness
    A scientist coughs

  18. Re:Lol. by RockModeNick · · Score: 3, Informative

    Silicosis is caused by buildup of microscarring in the lungs from internally processing and removing microshards of essentially a silicate solid. Some glassworkers used to get it from grinding glass dry, too, so if you ever drill glass, keep the drill tip and growing hole in the glass wet.

  19. Re:Origin Of The Toxic Moondust by imsabbel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, this is quite some bullshit you are telling :)

    If there were enough dust to shape the moon round, the apollo lander would have just sunk in ...

    The layer of dust has NOTHING to do with the creation process of the moon but rather with the fact that the lack of athmosphere combined with billions of years of pulverisation of the surface through impacts has created it, plus the lack of the magnetic field has implaneted ions from the solar wind.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  20. Re:returning to their ship with dust on their suit by ajpr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    actually, the dust got in through their boots aswell. Apparently the dust is so fine it can get through "air tight" spaces.

  21. Nominated for worst Slashdot headline 2005 by kronocide · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.