Posted on 01/30/2026 12:13:55 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A new study reveals that tiny fragments of Earth's atmosphere are transported to and absorbed by the moon via gusts of solar wind and our planet's magnetic field, upending a 20-year-old theory based on NASA's Apollo lunar samples... This surprising case of cosmic cannibalism is thanks to supercharged solar winds and, more importantly, our own planet's magnetic field...
Ever since NASA's Apollo missions first returned lunar samples to Earth in the early 1970s, scientists have been puzzled by traces of volatiles -- substances that vaporize at relatively low temperatures, including water, carbon dioxide, helium, argon, and nitrogen -- that they found within the moon's soil, or regolith. It soon became clear that some of these substances, particularly nitrogen ions, had originated from Earth's upper atmosphere and were most likely blown onto the moon by gusts of solar wind. (Recent research has also shown that some volatiles on the moon, such as water, may be created directly by the solar wind and have no terrestrial ties.)...
The models revealed that, rather than blocking atmospheric ions from being blown from our planet, the magnetic field lines within Earth's tail act as invisible highways for charged particles, guiding them toward the moon, where they are then settled into the lunar regolith.This means that the transfer of atmospheric ions likely began shortly after the magnetosphere took shape around 3.7 billion years ago -- and is likely still occurring today...
Earth is not the only solar system object to lose tiny bits of itself to the solar wind. Mercury is often seen with a long comet-like tail of dust that is blown off its surface, while the moon also has a tail of ablated sodium ions that Earth repeatedly passes through.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Actually the does have an atmosphere. It’s hardly more than a vacuum. But it does have one. It has gravity and will hold a certain amount of gas within it.
Unless the article contradicts the headline. this is nonsense.
No, I’m not going to bother to read it.
OMG, we’re all gonna die!
If the moon is receding from us at 1.5 inches per year, That means that 3.7 billion years ago. The moon was 87,595 miles closer to the Earth than it is now. That would really screw with the Orbital mechanics, wouldn’t it? I think maybe the findings in the article did not take that into account.
Very clever. Thanks.
Pretty sure that GOD CREATED IT THAT WAY!
No, it hasn’t.....(yawn)
Thank you for the reply. I do understand that the Earth’s Moon has a TINY amount of atmosphere. Perhaps this article goes a good deal of the way to explain why.
The question of importance, I think, is whether the Moon has more, or less, atmosphere than would be expected for its size and age.
My expectation would be that since the Moon has face-locked to the Earth, it has been robbed of any atmosphere it may have originally possessed.
Not a thought of perhaps any real importance, but a glimmer, perhaps, of the volatility of the Earth’s atmosphere. It has certainly not always been constant. Raw Oxygen is rare and, I believe, requires life.
Did you know that a vacuum tube has a harder vacuum than space?
The moon is drifting away at about one and a half inches per year, currently. As the moon moves away the rate of drifting away will decrease. The earth’s tidal bulge is tranferring earth’s rotational angular momentum to the moons orbital angular momentum, causing the earth’s rotational period to slow down by about 0.002 seconds per century, because of the larger size of the moon’s orbit, causing the length of a lunar month to increase as well.
If left to themselves, in about 50 billion years, the rotational period of the earth would be about 48 current days, and the period of the moon’s orbit the same. The Earth would always keep the same face to moon, just as the moon currently keeps the same face towards the earth. The orbit and rotational period would be same, there would be no more lunar tides to speak of, only solar tides.
But long before that happens, the sun will briefly expand, and swallow the earth and moon in about five billion years.
And we thought the moon was our friend? That’s a harsh mistrust.
Yes. There are all kinds of particles in space.
Thanx Lazarus.
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