Any astronauts who reach the surface of the Moon will first be greeted by a plume of dirt, sent flying by their spacecraft’s boosters. They will create and mark the dirt, take samples and analyze the dirt, and eventually use the dirt to make fuel and other supplies needed to maintain a long-term presence on the moon. When it comes to lunar exploration, it’s all about dirt.
Planetary Physicist Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida is the king of lunar dirt, or regolith. In 2013, he created a research lab at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where research teams work with artificial lunar regolith, like the sample pictured below, to learn how it behaves and what we can do with it. him With NASA’s Artemis program aiming to put humans back on the lunar surface in 2027 and eventually establish a permanent base there, this knowledge is increasingly important.
Regolith will be a hazard to astronauts during landing and building a crucial resource. Metzger works with scientists in several labs who are figuring out how to do it protect astronauts and their homes from sharp and dangerous dust particles and how to use dirt for rocket fuel and radiation shielding.
He talked to her The New Scientist what a There could be a permanent human presence on the moon, why the regolith is so important to this vision and how to understand this thick…
