{"id":461588,"date":"2025-12-21T05:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461588\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T05:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T05:44:15","slug":"earths-atmosphere-is-leaking-to-the-moon-and-heres-why-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461588\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth’s Atmosphere Is Leaking to The Moon, And Here’s Why : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Moon<\/a> has no real atmosphere<\/a>, but Earth has, in a sense, been generously trying to share its own for billions of years. A new study has found that our planet’s magnetic field could be what’s funnelling particles from Earth’s atmosphere onto the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

A surprising abundance of volatile elements has been detected in the lunar regolith \u2013 the fine, rocky dust covering the Moon’s surface \u2013 ever since the Apollo astronauts brought back samples<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Solar wind is one possible source<\/a> of volatiles, but that alone couldn’t account for these levels, especially the nitrogen. Tiny meteorites smashing into the Moon<\/a> could also be altering the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

Related: Sound of Earth’s Flipping Magnetic Field Haunts Again From 780,000 Years Ago<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Earth’s atmosphere has been proposed<\/a> as a potential source as well, but it was assumed that this would have been possible only before our planet’s magnetic field<\/a> developed; once it did, the field would have trapped most atmospheric particles.<\/p>\n

The new study<\/a>, conducted by astrophysicists at the University of Rochester, investigated that assumption.<\/p>\n

The team simulated two scenarios to see which fit the data best: an ‘early Earth’ model with no magnetic field and a stronger solar wind, or a ‘modern Earth’ model with a strong magnetic field and a weaker solar wind.<\/p>\n

Somewhat surprisingly, the modern Earth scenario fit the bill better. The solar wind knocks charged particles out of the atmosphere, sending them careening along the planet’s magnetic field lines.<\/p>\n

\"TheAn illustration of Earth’s magnetotail, and how it can funnel particles, such as oxygen, to the Moon. (Osaka University\/NASA<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Earth’s magnetosphere<\/a> isn’t, as the name suggests, a perfect sphere. Instead, it’s shaped more like the tail of a comet thanks to the constant pressure of the solar wind. And when the Moon passes through that tail, particles are deposited on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

Previous studies have suggested a similar mechanism could be delivering oxygen<\/a> to the Moon, creating water<\/a> and even rust<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new study suggests that this process has been ongoing for billions of years, giving these volatile particles plenty of time to build up in the lunar regolith.<\/p>\n

And since Earth’s atmosphere has changed drastically<\/a> in that period, a valuable time capsule of historical data could be preserved on the Moon’s surface.<\/p>\n

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Moon has no real atmosphere, but Earth has, in a sense, been generously trying to share its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[352,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-461588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115755973088673083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}