Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Team Detects High-Speed Hydrogen Atoms Coming From the Moon
ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 19 June 2009 | Phil Berardelli

Posted on 06/20/2009 8:20:28 PM PDT by neverdem

Enlarge ImagePicture of the moon

Surprise! The IBEX spacecraft, preparing to explore deep space (inset), accidentally made an important discovery about the moon.

Credit: Southwest Research Institute

Scientists probing the outer reaches of our solar system have hit upon an unusual phenomenon much closer to home. Instruments aboard a NASA spacecraft have detected fast-moving hydrogen atoms emanating from the moon. The atoms, which originated as protons from the sun, may help scientists study the lunar surface and other solar system objects in greater detail than believed possible.

The moon is continuously being pelted by hazardous radiation. Most of it comes from the solar wind, a stream of protons moving at about 1.6 million kilometers per hour in all directions from the sun. When these particles hit the moon, most stick to the lunar surface. But researchers suspected that a small number picked up electrons and bounced back into space as fast-moving hydrogen atoms. However, no one had detected these rebounding particles, until a team at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas, activated an instrument aboard NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) last December.

IBEX was designed to monitor the interstellar boundary, the region of space several billion kilometers away from Earth, where the outward pressure of the solar wind is balanced by the influence of incoming particles from all across the Milky Way. The SwRI team, led by space physicist David McComas, was starting up IBEX's high-speed particle detector just as the moon passed in front of its field of view. Suddenly, the instrument started picking up signals galore from high-speed hydrogen atoms streaming from the moon. "We were still testing the instrument," McComas says. "We hadn't even gotten into full science mode."

When they did, McComas and colleagues determined that as many as 10% of the solar protons that hit the moon bounce back into space as hydrogen atoms. Those atoms, the team explains this week in Geophysical Research Letters, are not electrically charged, so they can't be influenced by magnetic fields from the sun or Earth.

That means the particles can travel a long way undisturbed, such as back from the asteroids or the moons of Mars or even Jupiter, says physicist Yue Chen of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. And because so many of them are reflected, they can help scientists build a portrait of the type of surface that reflected them, such as how dusty, rocky, or even icy it is.

One of the key questions in the evolution of planetary systems is how surfaces interact with the stellar wind, says physicist Larry Paxton of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. So these findings "will help us develop our understanding of the processes that shaped our world and the other planets."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Testing
KEYWORDS: atoms; catastrophism; highspeed; hydrogen; ibex; moon; nasa; solarwind
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-32 last
To: ColdWater
Where does the moon get all the electrons that it is donating to the protons?

Where does static electricity come from? When helicopters can't land, and they lower a cable hoist to do a medevac mission, you are told to let the cable touch the ground to avoid any static electricity built up in the helicopter. Elements change the oxidation states. Some like to lose electrons. Some like to gain electrons.

21 posted on 06/20/2009 9:37:39 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Redcitizen

One might get the image from the title of little moopn folks shooting wee cannons of hydrogen projectiles, hoping to stop the invasion.


22 posted on 06/20/2009 9:38:26 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: umgud
Albeit interesting, why is this important to us?

It's a new finding that wasn't appreciated before. It's nice to know what's happening. Will it be useful? I don't know. When lasers were first developed, a lot of people thought they were useless toys.

23 posted on 06/20/2009 9:44:35 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: relictele

admiral nelson and captain crane already took care of the van allen belt.......


24 posted on 06/20/2009 9:44:49 PM PDT by bobby.223
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

hold on a second.

the satellite was how far from the moon and it was able to detect hydrogen ATOMS??

holy resolution, batman.

imagine how far and how weak an electromagnetic signal they should be able to read. wifi from space anyone?


25 posted on 06/20/2009 9:46:18 PM PDT by sten
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Have you never seen lightening? That is what happens when you get an unbalance.


26 posted on 06/20/2009 9:47:34 PM PDT by ColdWater
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Somebody better alert the Goreacle...

Fight Lunar Warming...

Tax the daylights out of those Hydrogen emissions!

Offer Hydrogen credit offsets...

We're gonna be rich.

(For the record, please note it was I that proposed it first...for commission purposes later)

27 posted on 06/20/2009 10:29:56 PM PDT by NorCoGOP (Recession: friend loses his job. Depression: You lose your job. Recovery: Obama loses his job.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MHGinTN

One might also get the image of Martians preparing to fire their cannon to invade the the earth ala War of the worlds.


28 posted on 06/20/2009 10:36:03 PM PDT by Redcitizen (December 21, 2012; there's change for ya!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Redcitizen
Well, there are lots of fictional images that can come to mind. The reality is that we have not a clue what our current state of reality is as it relates to the way the universe is constructed. Our greatest scientific minds are still thrashing over the notion of ‘multiverse’! And the Old Testament verified that reality thousands of years ago, in the fifth chapter of Daniel, albeit they have yet to get a clue what it really entails!
29 posted on 06/20/2009 10:40:15 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Redcitizen

30 posted on 06/20/2009 10:48:34 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (The Last Boy Scout)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Kevmo; 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...
McComas and colleagues determined that as many as 10% of the solar protons that hit the moon bounce back into space as hydrogen atoms. Those atoms, the team explains this week in Geophysical Research Letters, are not electrically charged, so they can't be influenced by magnetic fields from the sun or Earth.
Thanks Kevmo and neverdem.
 
Catastrophism
 
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

31 posted on 06/21/2009 6:54:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: UCANSEE2

Lol!


32 posted on 06/21/2009 6:56:49 PM PDT by rdl6989
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-32 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson