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."

Comments

All I know

[Bastard of Subhumani]

All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month!

Re:All I know

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. That is what towels on the bed and a shower after is for. You're getting ripped off.

Re:All I know

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that he'll understand, he probably doesn't get any tail for the other 24 days either.

Re:All I know

[Anonymous Coward]

who said you could leave the kitchen? Go make me a sandwich sweetie.

Re:All I know

[that IT girl]

Spoken like a true anonymous coward.

Re:All I know

[budgenator]

All I know is, I don't get any tail for six days every month! on the moon the tail gets you, 6 days a month

Re:All I know

[Ethanol-fueled]

She works in IT. She dosen't make sandwiches, she makes the coffee, you insensitive clod!

Re:All I know

[that IT girl]

Haha! And people wonder why more women don't take an interest in computers. It's not the computers they're afraid of, it's putting up with all the comments like this... Good thing I can handle it -flex- :D

Re:All I know

[that IT girl]

But you sure can try! When I worked for the computer department in college, I had this one professor whose situation had me stumped. I had to re-install her operating system once every week or two, and even replaced the hard drive once because of bad sectors all over the place. I had no idea what was going on; she swore she just used it for emails and her worksheets, etc. After a while, she called one day, and I finally decided I'd go take a look at it in it's usual environment instead of having her bring it up like usual. And what did I see? About 20 cute but destructive little magnets all over the side of it. x.x She'd been taking them off every time she brought me her computer, so I had no idea they were on usually on there. After I explained why this was a very bad idea and advised her not to put magnets near it, her computer never had a problem again. Fancy that!

Re:All I know

[j01123]

And all I know is....I also don't get any tail the other 24 days. Well, you'll get more tail living on the moon than you do living in your mom's basement.

Re:All I know

[Anonymous Coward]

Sudo make me a sandwich.

Re:All I know

[glittalogik]

Ditto. I know a couple of friends who have semi-regular Ethnic Slur Days, which used to be fairly superficial with drunken name-calling, and have now (d)evolved to the point of researching historical events to find new things to blame each other for. When it gets to the point where, for example, you're yelling at the token Catalan in the group for Ysabella bringing the Inquisition to the Canary Islands in the late 15th Century, it starts getting downright educational.

(fucking spaniards.)

Re:All I know

[AdamTheBastard]

Anonymous Coward is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

Re:All I know

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying it's a little bit like dating with none of the upsides?

Re:All I know

[IndustrialComplex]

My preferred option for those 6 days is to have a hot standby.

Fix from article

[Anonymous Coward]

"So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon" Fixed.

Magneto Tail?

[that IT girl]

Am I the only one who can't get past the image of the villain from X-Men? ;)

Now we know.

[Anonymous Coward]

But read more for additional details about how Earth's magnetotail could affect men on the moon." That's why Jackie Gleason wanted to send ladies to the moon.

Mental image:

[smittyoneeach]

Crowd of corpulent Southerners at a Crawfish Tail Fry somewhere on the Redneck Rivera dropping trou' to moon a luxury liner passing by.

moot

[McGiraf]

This is moot, as we all know they will not make it thought the Radiation Belt anyway.

Re:People on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

You shut your whore mouth when men are talking.

And go make me a sammich.

Safe Space Travel

[byronne]

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.

Simple Solution

[jeffkjo1]

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.

MegaMan

[kurtis25]

Didn't we defeat magnetotail back in MegaMan 3 using our Plasma Buster?

Electrostatic discharge ?

[d3m0nCr4t]

They are going to need one hell of a cable to earth that...

Re:Roland the Plogger again

[Cecil]

This was in the early 1970s.

See, there's your problem. The magnetotail wasn't so big back then, because of the ozone hole and global warming and oprah winfrey. Also, gnomes did it.

A name for this effect?

[Microsift]

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?