India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft found hematite, a common iron oxide, is quite common the lunar near-side surface. This is surprising as conditions on the moon were thought to be very hostile to rust.

Turns out that the tail end of the Earth’s magnetic field provides enough protection (and enough traces of oxygen) for rust to form, in combination with water particles kicked up by the moon’s interaction with its accompanying dust cloud. NASA takes up the story:

“…Digging through the spectral data returned by Chandrayaan-1 a decade ago, Shuai Li, Researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii saw a signature that closely matched hematite.

But how could rust have possibly formed when the needed ingredients are not present?

Turns out, Earth is to blame — with a little help from the Sun.

The solar wind routinely bombards the Moon with hydrogen, which actually makes it harder for hematite to form because hydrogen adds electrons to the material it interacts with. Hematite needs the opposite: an oxidizer to remove electrons.

“It’s very puzzling,” Li said. “The Moon is a terrible environment for hematite to form in.”

Full Report

Don’t worry, soon there’ll be another geomagnetic reversal and that’ll put a stop to that.

Bubblecar said:

India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft found hematite, a common iron oxide, is quite common the lunar near-side surface. This is surprising as conditions on the moon were thought to be very hostile to rust.

Turns out that the tail end of the Earth’s magnetic field provides enough protection (and enough traces of oxygen) for rust to form, in combination with water particles kicked up by the moon’s interaction with its accompanying dust cloud. NASA takes up the story:

“…Digging through the spectral data returned by Chandrayaan-1 a decade ago, Shuai Li, Researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii saw a signature that closely matched hematite.

But how could rust have possibly formed when the needed ingredients are not present?

Turns out, Earth is to blame — with a little help from the Sun.

The solar wind routinely bombards the Moon with hydrogen, which actually makes it harder for hematite to form because hydrogen adds electrons to the material it interacts with. Hematite needs the opposite: an oxidizer to remove electrons.

“It’s very puzzling,” Li said. “The Moon is a terrible environment for hematite to form in.”

Full Report

Rusting of spacecraft is a very major problem. IIRC, Hubble’s gyroscopes were failing because they were rusting. For example.

The Earth’s atmosphere does lose oxygen to space.

>>But how could rust have possibly formed when the needed ingredients are not present?

It may not have formed on the moon anyway.
It may have already have been present in impact objects.

Peak Warming Man said:

>>But how could rust have possibly formed when the needed ingredients are not present?

It may not have formed on the moon anyway.
It may have already have been present in impact objects.

Someone here is clever.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft found hematite, a common iron oxide, is quite common the lunar near-side surface. This is surprising as conditions on the moon were thought to be very hostile to rust.

Turns out that the tail end of the Earth’s magnetic field provides enough protection (and enough traces of oxygen) for rust to form, in combination with water particles kicked up by the moon’s interaction with its accompanying dust cloud. NASA takes up the story:

“…Digging through the spectral data returned by Chandrayaan-1 a decade ago, Shuai Li, Researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii saw a signature that closely matched hematite.

But how could rust have possibly formed when the needed ingredients are not present?

Turns out, Earth is to blame — with a little help from the Sun.

The solar wind routinely bombards the Moon with hydrogen, which actually makes it harder for hematite to form because hydrogen adds electrons to the material it interacts with. Hematite needs the opposite: an oxidizer to remove electrons.

“It’s very puzzling,” Li said. “The Moon is a terrible environment for hematite to form in.”

Full Report

Rusting of spacecraft is a very major problem. IIRC, Hubble’s gyroscopes were failing because they were rusting. For example.

The Earth’s atmosphere does lose oxygen to space.

Apologies. Yes, Hubble’s gyroscopes were failing because they were rusting, but that had nothing to do with oxygen in space, it was a contaminant of the lubricating fluid. The problem is now fixed by using nitrogen instead of compressed air to force the fluid into its float cavity. I’m sure that oxygen in space was causing rusting of some other spacecraft.

Anyway, the magnetic field doesn’t offer Earth’s atmosphere much protection at all. Yes, the Earth is losing atmosphere more slowly than Mars and Venus with their very weak magnetic fields, but not that much less.

Moon’s atmosphere, from https://www.space.com/18067-moon-atmosphere.html

“Several elements have been detected in the lunar atmosphere. Detectors left by Apollo astronauts have detected argon-40, helium-4, oxygen, methane, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Earth-based spectrometers have detected sodium and potassium, while the Lunar Prospector orbiter found radioactive isotopes of radon and polonium.”

So the Moon does have oxygen in its atmosphere.

From https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/news/lunar-atmosphere.html

“The Apollo 17 mission deployed an instrument called the Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE) on the moon’s surface. It detected small amounts of a number of atoms and molecules including helium, argon, and possibly neon, ammonia, methane and carbon dioxide. From here on Earth, researchers using special telescopes that block light from the moon’s surface have been able to make images of the glow from sodium and potassium atoms in the moon’s atmosphere as they are energized by the sun. Still, we only have a partial list of what makes up the lunar atmosphere. Many other species are expected.

“We think that there are several sources for gases in the moon’s atmosphere. These include high energy photons and solar wind particles knocking atoms from the lunar surface, chemical reactions between the solar wind and lunar surface material, evaporation of surface material, material released from the impacts of comets and meteoroids, and out-gassing from the moon’s interior. But which of these sources and processes are important on the moon? We still don’t know.

The oxygen that caused rusting on the Moon doesn’t have to have come from the Earth. It could have come from “high energy photons and solar wind particles knocking atoms from the lunar surface”. Or to put it another way: Basalt + radiation gives oxygen. Oxygen + iron gives rust.

mollwollfumble said:

… it was a contaminant of the lubricating fluid. The problem is now fixed by using nitrogen instead of compressed air to force the fluid into its float cavity.

Cheesus, they needed rocket scientists to work that out??

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

… it was a contaminant of the lubricating fluid. The problem is now fixed by using nitrogen instead of compressed air to force the fluid into its float cavity.

Cheesus, they needed rocket scientists to work that out??

The works of God are wondrous indeed. ;)