Skip to content
Advertisement
When Appliance Fail?

15,000 years of solar wind in four hours? A Seattle company gives it a go.

"We're living in this world of scarcity with the Moon."

schedule 14:14 visibility 37 views
15,000 years of solar wind in four hours? A Seattle company gives it a go.
Source: Ars Technica

As part of its nuclear fusion processes, the Sun produces a particularly interesting isotope of helium, known as helium-3. Some of this helium-3 escapes the Sun's gravitational pull as part of the solar wind, a stream of charged particles that emanates out across the Solar System.

Over billions of years, this wind has bombarded every body in the vicinity of the Sun, including Earth's Moon. Lacking a magnetic field or atmosphere, the Moon's surface has no barrier to prevent the constant flow of this wind.

This means that helium-3 has been striking the lunar soil, or regolith, for a long time. These helium ions penetrate only a little way into the individual grains of this soil, but periodically meteorites have struck the lunar surface to churn the soil, mixing some of this helium-3 a little below the surface.

Read full article

Comments

newspaper

Originally published at

Ars Technica

open_in_new Read Full Article

Related Articles

Read More

Brazil: Amazon deforestation at 40-year low
Environment

Brazil: Amazon deforestation at 40-year low

In Brazil, deforestation in the Amazon has reached its lowest level in 40 years. President Lula is bolstering his environmental record just over a week before the second round of the presidential election, in which he faces Flávio Bolsonaro.

France 24
France faces day of cost-of-living protests
Environment

France faces day of cost-of-living protests

French authorities detained dozens on Saturday at the start of nationwide protests against the cost of living, in what is likely to be a key indicator of the social climate heading toward elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron. France 24's...

France 24
Your Appliance Broke?
Reliable Repair for