The Moon has gas?

Viktor Toth wrote the following:

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Larry,

Haven't seen this in your mailing list yet:

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061106/full/061106-12.html

Viktor
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The above link is about the possibility that the Moon may have burped not all that long ago, geologically speaking.
- LRK -

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Published online: 8 November 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061106-12 The Moon has gas Eruptions confound the idea that our nearest neighbour is a geological dead zone.

Katharine Sanderson

Some think the Moon has been geologically dead for billions of years. But Peter Schultz of Brown University, Rhode Island, is not one of them. His results show that some lunar craters were formed as recently as 10 million years ago by gas eruptions, suggesting that there's still something bubbling away beneath the Moon's surface.

In terms of lunar geology, 10 million years is yesterday. It was thought that all volcanic activity stopped 3.2 billion years ago, and that any young craters were caused by meteor impacts. Time to think again, say Schultz and his colleagues in this week's Nature1.

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Part of what I wrote Viktor.
- LRK -

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Hi Viktor,

Wake me up.

I read this somewhere else and thought so active only 10 million years ago instead of back at the beginning, what does that do for me now, dead is dead, and then went back to trying to learn the 3D SketchUp drawing program.
http://sketchup.google.com/product_sup.html

I guess I don't multitask too well or there aren't enough hours in the day.
I have the free version of SketchUp from Google and sent off for the $20, good for 8 hours, demo CD of SketchUp Pro 5, which if you like you can license activate for another $495.

Was thinking I could use the program to make some lunar colonies in 3D and use to portray on the Internet. The NSS would prefer to see floating cities in the sky but would accept lunar materials to help build such entities.

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http://www.nss.org/settlement/

Since Viktor mentioned the Moon has gas question, I thought we might look at that a little more. See some links below.
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061106/full/061106-12.html
Published online: 8 November 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061106-12 The Moon has gas Eruptions confound the idea that our nearest neighbour is a geological dead zone.

Katharine Sanderson

Some think the Moon has been geologically dead for billions of years. But Peter Schultz of Brown University, Rhode Island, is not one of them. His results show that some lunar craters were formed as recently as 10 million years ago by gas eruptions, suggesting that there's still something bubbling away beneath the Moon's surface.

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Traces of radon, spotted by the Apollo mission in 1975, hinted that the Moon was still belching gas. The latest results can now tie those observations to features on the surface, says Paul Spudis, of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Those features are the craters at an area called Ina, a relic of volcanic activity. To find out how old these craters are, and what caused them, the researchers set about comparing them with better understood craters in other areas.

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Together, the data have led Schultz to think that the craters must have been formed by volcanic activity — gas eruptions — no later than 10 million years ago. He suspects that things are still on the move: "We realize that there are still things happening on the inside." Spudis sees the finding as suggestive, rather than definitive.

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The gas is unlikely to make any difference to those thinking of colonization, Spudis says. "But you never know — for long-term habitation, it may end up being important."

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NOTE: So maybe I was too quick to leave the article. I should put this in the cue for places that might be interesting to consider for a future lunar colony and something I might be able to model with SketchUp Pro 5.

Thanks Viktor for waking me up.
- LRK -

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http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0611/10moon/
Moon's escaping gasses expose fresh surface BROWN UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE
Posted: November 10, 2006

Conventional wisdom suggests that the Earth's moon has seen no widespread volcanic activity for at least the last 3 billion years. Now, a fresh look at existing data points to much more recent release of lunar gasses.

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http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4669&r=rss
The Moon's fresh face
Research indicates that volcanic gas has been released from the Moon's surface within the last one to ten million years.
Provided by Brown University
November 10, 2006

Conventional wisdom suggests that the moon has seen no widespread volcanic activity for at least the last three billion years. Now, a fresh look at existing data points to much more recent release of lunar gasses.

The study, published in the journal Nature by geologists Peter Schulz and Carlé Pieters of Brown University and Matthew Staid of the Planetary Science Institute, uses three distinct lines of evidence to support the assertion that volcanic gas has been released from the Moon's surface within the last one to ten million years. The researchers focus on a D-shaped area called the Ina structure that was first recognized in images from Apollo missions.

The unusual sharpness of the features first called Schultz's attention to the area. "Something that razor sharp shouldn't stay around long. It ought to be destroyed within 50 million years," said Schulz. On Earth, wind and water quickly wear down freshly exposed surface features. On the airless moon, constant bombardment with tiny space debris accomplishes a similar result. By comparing the fine-scale surface features within the Ina structure to other areas on the moon with known ages, the team was able to place its age at closer two million years.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3967790/
What the moon has to offer
Scientists point to building materials, energy sources

Updated: 12:27 p.m. PT Jan 15, 2004

WASHINGTON - The moon is a smorgasbord of useful resources that could be used to support a lunar base and even improve life on Earth, scientists say.

President Bush announced Wednesday that he wants to establish a base on the moon as a stepping stone toward further human exploration of the cosmos.
With its weaker gravitational pull to tug on spacecraft, the moon makes a better jumping-off place than Earth, he said.

Bush noted Wednesday that lunar soil could be processed to make rocket fuel and create breathable air. But the list goes well beyond that, other scientists said after Bush’s speech.

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http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22dec_lunartaurid.htm
An Explosion on the Moon
12.23.2005
So you thought nothing ever happens on the moon?

December 23, 2005: NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon.
The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s.

"What a surprise," says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact's flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, "we caught one," says Suggs.

The object that hit the moon was "probably a Taurid," says MSFC meteor expert Bill Cooke. In other words, it was part of the same meteor shower that peppered Earth with fireballs in late October and early November 2005.
(See "Fireball Sightings" from Science@NASA.)

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NOTE: I sure hope we get some more satellites going around the Moon so that we get some close up pictures of recent activity on the Moon, maybe even as it happens.
- LRK -
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http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=17
Unmanned Spaceflight.com
Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Earth & Moon > SMART-1 + Lunar Exploration

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Forum on the above topics. More people looking up and talking about it.
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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