By Abir Mahmud
NASA has created a mission called ”Artemis” to send astronauts to the moon by 2024. But to do that, they need to clear up a problem caused by DUST.
The moon has survived the ongoing impact on its physical environment from the constant crushing of lunar or moon rock over billions of years. The finely ground particles of lunar rock have been referred to as “broken glass” by Mihály Horányi, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This dust is harmful to astronaut’s health, and can also damage the equipment of the astronaut. Moreover, exposure to the Sun makes this dust acquire an electric charge that causes it to stick to everything—which makes the problem even worse.
Dr.Horányi and others have discovered a way of picking up lunar dust via its electric charge, by using a low powered electric beam to make the dust particles fly off the surface of the moon. “It helps the sticky situation for the astronauts”, confirmed researchers in a online report appearing August 8th in Acta Astronautica.
During the Apollo missions, astronauts relied on low-tech solutions, like using brushes to clean the lunar dust off their spacesuits. But problems persisted with that strategy because the dust still sticks to the space fabric and goes inside of it.
The new method developed by Dr.Horányi takes advantage of the dust’s electrical properties. An electrical beam causes the dust to release electrons into the tiny spaces between particles. Some of the negatively charged electrons are absorbed by the dust specks around it. Because the charged negative electrons repel each other, “the resulting electric field ejects dust off the surface,” says Xu Wang, a physicist also at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
“This is a unique idea,” says mechanical engineer Hiroyuki Kawamoto of Waseda University in Tokyo, who was not involved in the new work. Kawamoto and his colleagues have developed their own dust-cleaning technology, including a layer of electrons that can be built into materials. When inside of the spacesuit, the electron forces fling away the charged dust particles. “Such systems are more complex than shooting an electron beam at the surface, Wang says, in that it would require a robot or some other external means to direct it.”
Another limitation of the electron beam is that it left behind 15 to 25 percent of the dust particles. The researchers’ aim is to improve the cleaning power. According to Horányi, the team envisions the electron beam as just one of the multiple approaches that future space explorers will need to keep surfaces clean. This includes improved suit design, other cleaning technologies, and, one day, even lunar habitats with “moon dust mudrooms”.