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'Deflector Shields' protect the Lunar Surface
This image shows a truly miniature, magnetosphere recreated in the laboratory. The plasma “bubble” shown here is a mere inch across in total. The purple glow, seen in the photograph, is the stream of super-heated hot gas particles (plasma) of the Solar Wind Tunnel. You'd expect this stream to scorch the metal target. Without a magnetic field it would. But the experiment shows how instead what happens is a thin barrier or “skin” is formed of the plasma itself, within which a tiny cavity in the pseudo- solar wind is formed, which holds back the hazardous particles, so protecting the target except for at the magnetic poles.
(Phys.org) -- Scientists from RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have solved a lunar mystery and their results might lead the way to determining if the same mechanism could be artificially manipulated to create safe havens for future space explorers. Their work focussed on the origin of the enigmatic "lunar swirls" - swirling patches of relatively pale lunar soil, some measuring several tens of km across, which have been an unresolved mystery - until now.
(Phys.org) -- Scientists from RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have solved a lunar mystery and their results might lead the way to determining if the same mechanism could be artificially manipulated to create safe havens for future space explorers. Their work focussed on the origin of the enigmatic "lunar swirls" - swirling patches of relatively pale lunar soil, some measuring several tens of km across, which have been an unresolved mystery - until now.
Read more at: 'Deflector Shields' protect the Lunar Surface
This image shows a truly miniature, magnetosphere recreated in the laboratory. The plasma “bubble” shown here is a mere inch across in total. The purple glow, seen in the photograph, is the stream of super-heated hot gas particles (plasma) of the Solar Wind Tunnel. You'd expect this stream to scorch the metal target. Without a magnetic field it would. But the experiment shows how instead what happens is a thin barrier or “skin” is formed of the plasma itself, within which a tiny cavity in the pseudo- solar wind is formed, which holds back the hazardous particles, so protecting the target except for at the magnetic poles.
(Phys.org) -- Scientists from RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have solved a lunar mystery and their results might lead the way to determining if the same mechanism could be artificially manipulated to create safe havens for future space explorers. Their work focussed on the origin of the enigmatic "lunar swirls" - swirling patches of relatively pale lunar soil, some measuring several tens of km across, which have been an unresolved mystery - until now.
(Phys.org) -- Scientists from RAL Space at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have solved a lunar mystery and their results might lead the way to determining if the same mechanism could be artificially manipulated to create safe havens for future space explorers. Their work focussed on the origin of the enigmatic "lunar swirls" - swirling patches of relatively pale lunar soil, some measuring several tens of km across, which have been an unresolved mystery - until now.
Read more at: 'Deflector Shields' protect the Lunar Surface
