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]

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]

Oh, of course. In fact, I'm secure and know I'm good at my job, so generally I find these comments pretty funny. Especially knowing some of the women that I work with who I just know HAD to have gotten where they are through... unscrupulous means. Nevertheless, it's not exactly a welcoming environment for the average lady, no matter how savvy. ;)

Fix from article

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Fix from article

[Anonymous Coward]

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

One reply seemed to take this seriously, not as a joke, so I'll bite too.

To believe that the moon landing never happened as per Fox documentary (oxymoron?) you would have to..

.. believe that Soviet and China was in on the conspiracy, at the height of the cold war when this was a major blow to them. They could easily have disproved a fake moon landing, and choose to let US revel in glory instead..?

.. believe that all the actual moon rock available to scientists and universities is... what?

That's just two Occams Razor points, not going into NASAs rebuttals against the so called photo evidence.

Not every month

[Geoffrey.landis]

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.

Re:Not every month

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the most conservative estimate indicates the moon always passes through the magnetotail, because the earth's magnetotail is much larger than the earth's shadow. Here's my calculation. If I made a mistake, please correct me.

The Magnetotail is 20-25 Re(earth radii) across depending on season(minimum 10 Re in radius); much bigger than the shadow of the earth(2 Re). The moon's orbit is inclined 5% off the ecliptic(the plane of earth's orbit around the sun). The earth's magnetotail is essentially in this plane. The moon is at a distance of 405696 km at apogee (~60 Re). This means even at the point when the moon is furthest from the ecliptic plane (ie apogee is coaligned with the magnetotail) it will still fall inside the magnetotail.

60.24 * sin((5./180)*pi) = 5.25 Re < 10 Re

Thus, precession or no, the moon will always be in the magnetotail for at least part of each orbit. It would take extremely extraordinary(read: improbable) solar wind conditions to make the magnetotail thin to 5 Re.

Re:Full Moon on Moon?

[frovingslosh]

No, it would be a "new Earth", which happens from the moon's viewpoint when Earth sees a full moon. A full Earth, from the moon's viewpoint, would happen two weeks later when the moon is "new" and not in the tail at all. Since a "new Earth" and a "full moon" happen at the same time, the full moon reference is perfectly correct and makes more sense.

Ahem

[dreamchaser]

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.

Magneto Tail?

[that IT girl]

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

Re:If we want to go to the moon

[arivanov]

Oops... Should have read it again before posting. The happy event happens during full moon when it is nicely lit by the sun so the rovers have indeed experienced it and none of them has observed any such wierd things. They were up there for months so I this is mostly likely not the kind of problem to worry about. It is least likely to be even close to the amount of radiation pounding a station will get during a solar storm.

moot

[McGiraf]

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

Giant, predictable magnetic distrubance?

[toastee]

Sounds like a great opportunity to harness the energy potential. this could very well be useful.

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.

Roland the Plogger again

[Animats]

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.

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.

Re:Roland the Plogger again

[1u3hr]

And Roland got his "for more information" link to his blog through again. Recently the editors have omitted these (though if you look in the firehose, Roland puts his spammy blog link in every submission).

Tagged "blogspam" and "fuckroland".

Electrostatic discharge ?

[d3m0nCr4t]

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

This was brought up in 1956 then 2005:

[Fluffeh]

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.