Examining old rocks with new technology reveals the source of the moon’s atmosphere: Meteorites bombarding the lunar surface over billions of years have kicked up dust that forms the satellite’s tenuous atmosphere, according to a report in Science Advances.
Why Scientists are Studying Moon Rocks
A team of scientists analyzed moon rocks collected during the Apollo missions that ran from 1968 to 1972. Those samples had been examined earlier.
“But the instruments weren’t very precise back then,” says the study’s lead author, Nicole Nie, an assistant professor at MIT.
In 2013, NASA launched the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer to gather information about the moon’s thin atmosphere. That mission delivered two clues. First, potassium and rubidium concentrations in the moon’s atmosphere increased during meteor showers. Second, the levels of those elements changed during a lunar eclipse, which shielded it from Earth.
