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Will the Earth's Tail Fry Moon Visitors?
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers working for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth's magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth's 'magnetotail' for six days every month — during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in 'The Moon and the Magnetotail.' So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, 'Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.' But read more for additional details about how Earth's magnetotail could affect men on the moon."
All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month!
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
We need to test this if we go to the moon. Well that, or get mutant astronauts ;)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
The moon stays inside Earth's 'magnetotail' for six days every month â" during full moon. Wouldn't that be full earth instead?
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
"The ground, meanwhile, might leap into the sky. There's growing evidence that fine particles of moondust might actually float, ejected from the lunar surface by electrostatic repulsion. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts."
If this were the case, the entire moon's surface-particles floating above the planet 6 days each month, we would have already seen it. If not with naked eyes then with telescopes. We can see localized dust storms on Mars, I can only imagine what a planet-wide de-surfacing would look like. Ridiculous.
"So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon" Fixed.
Actually, the moon doesn't pass through Earth's magnetotail every month-- the moon's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic, so some months the magnetotail passes north or south of the moon-- it depends on season and precession.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Just one example of what might go on that we can't see with regards to lunar dust storms. Took me all of a few seconds to find and there looks to be a lot more to read. Google is your friend.
this article should have read: Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers working for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth's magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth's 'magnetotail' for six days every month â" during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in 'The Moon and the Magnetotail.' So far, this is pure speculation: no HUMAN has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, 'Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.' But read more for additional details about how Earth's magnetotail could affect HUMANS on the moon."
Am I the only one who can't get past the image of the villain from X-Men? ;)
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Crowd of corpulent Southerners at a Crawfish Tail Fry somewhere on the Redneck Rivera dropping trou' to moon a luxury liner passing by.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is moot, as we all know they will not make it thought the Radiation Belt anyway.
Valid use for tinfoil hats found at last.
AT&ROFLMAO
Dude, visitors are real.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Alas, the days where one could travel to the moon in comfort and safety are behind us. Now it is nearly as hazardous as trying to merge onto 294.
"Look, Smithers! I'm Davy Crockett!"
Moon Police Officer #1: Looks like a full Earth tonight.
Moon Police Officer #2: Yup. All the crazies will be out for sure.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Sounds like a great opportunity to harness the energy potential. this could very well be useful.
- Better to speak your mind than to remain silent, or someone may speak for you.
why isn't the ISS affected by the "magnetic tail"? It has to pass trough it.
Imagine what it feels like to be a sock pulled crackling from a dryer. Astronauts on the moon during a magnetotail crossing might be able to tell you. Walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain, the astronauts themselves would gather a load of excess charge. Touching another astronaut, a doorknob, a piece of sensitive electronics -- any of these simple actions could produce an unwelcome discharge.
There's a simple solution to the excessive static discharge, all NASA needs to do is get a dryer sheet the size of Michigan. Plus, it would have the added bonus of being able to be used as a giant parachute, ala pre-school... think about how high you could bounce with that thing.
Didn't we defeat magnetotail back in MegaMan 3 using our Plasma Buster?
It's Roland the Plogger, wrong as usual.
It's not like this is a newly discovered phenomenon. After all, there have been many unmanned moon landings and equipment has operated through the "magnetotail" many times. The USSR landed two lunar rovers, both of which worked for months. Lunokhod 1 was operational for 322 days, and Lunokhod 2 was operational for about four months. This was in the early 1970s.
They are going to need one hell of a cable to earth that...
You'd *love* the place where I just started working. Yes, there's certainly a predominance of males in the engineering and IT departments, but it's quite impressive how many women are working here - in highly technical roles - and every day since I got here I get the sense that this company only hires the best they can get. Right across the street from MIT, as you you could surmise, what they get is pretty damn good :)
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
Pfft. That's nothing.
You guys should witness the destruction in the wake of my roommate's burritotail...
The thing is-- It would have been a heck of a lot more difficult to successfully pull off a faked moon landing, and keep it secret (especially without the Soviets calling us on it quite loudly) than it was to actually go to the moon.
Sounds like a good thing to me, not only do you get a lovely platter at the end of your meal, but the thing floats above the plate. Talk about a light meal...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Will the Earth's Tail Fry Moon Visitors?
Is it a stretch to say I read:
Will the Earth's Soleil Moon Frye Visitors?
I mean her.
...how the moon's magnetotail would affect theoretical people on the Earth. We never went there, you know. It's scientifically impossible.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
So, while the Moon is positioned such that it reflects the Sun's rays back at earth, astronauts could get fried, would that be a Soleil Moon Frye?
My other sig is extremely clever...
A George Foreman BBQ on the moon now that would be sweet.
I don't know why there seems to such a scare in the article. The Earth's magnetic force is one gauss. This is not something to really be terribly concerned about. I mean really one stinking Gauss. Sure it covers a large distance, but this tail has got to be really weak at even the Moon's closest approach to Earth. It's more likely Earth's gravitational pull has a larger impact and cause of dust storms on the Moon than it's totally lame Magnetic tail.
where's the 'ohnoitsroland' tag? would have saved me a couple minutes.
A detailed look at this can be found in this link from Nasa on the topic of moon fountains, which is basically the exact same thing under a different name.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I mean haven't we already sent probes and satelites to the moon already, why havent they discovered this? So we send a probe to the moon to test this and if it pans out we buy all the astronaugts tinfoil underwear...
01010111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101110 01111001 01100010 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 00111111
Program Intellivision!
No man landed on the moon period, you mean.
A lot of the more interesting tags, and some of the less important ones, don't show up anymore. I enjoyed seeing some articles with a "yes" tag and "sharskwithlasers" tags, and then other stories with "yes" and "no" and "maybe" tags all at once. I dislike our current tags, and wish it went back to the original.
There's a picture I don't want wedged between my insights.
Invenio via vel creo
It sounds funny when you say, 'Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.'
It makes it sound like the moon is physically different when it is 'full'. It should say 'Apollo astronauts never landed on the moon when it appeared full from Earth.'
Paul
Land on the dark side?
If the Earth's magnetotail is strong enough to worry about affects on astronauts, can we use it to our benefit and generate electricty to power the "moon base". If the passage through the magnetic field is periodic, it sounds like a perfect implemntation of generator effect. Plus, with such a strong field - and large capacity storage - it may be possible to generate all required power over the 6 day period of tail crossing and store the remainder for use during tail non-crossing.
Sounds like it would at least be worth investigating?
Couldn't they just make the moon base be a giant Faraday cage and not go outside for six days a month?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The Apollo astronauts dealt with hard radiation on their trip to the moon, because they passed outside the magnetosphere. I suspect there's a lot more danger in that than there is in having the tail pass through. Ions are fairly easy to shield -- gamma rays are difficult.
Now at last I have an inkling of how werewolves come to be.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
'nibble' is spelled with an 'i'
"Little is much when little you need."
Oh ye of no sense of humor, and no appreciation for a good bit of wordplay....
And if you're really feeling pedantic, it depends on when you learned it and where you learned it from. Even Donald Knuth uses nybble.
Program Intellivision!
Given the radiation from "Our Mr. Sun" in daytime, aren't we designing for underground facilities on the Moon anyway?
Three to six feet of dirt stops quite a bit of gamma . . .
-- Dave
*begs* You were supposed to say something about certain groups that don't believe in nybbles *cough*Commonwealth hackers*cough*
"Little is much when little you need."