Thursday, April 28, 2022

The rain on the moon

Last night Fairbanks, Alaska brought us some details on the lunar rain. Our Moon gets water from several sources: hydrogen (ionic) from the Sun, various hydrogen and oxygen compounds from meteors. Rod Boyce claims oxygen comes from the Sun also but, I doubt enough to matter, and the Moon doesn't need it.

Anyway the 3500 km3 of water in the Moon's polar craters might fall from our own Earth. Like Venus, Earth has a tail of gas streaming from the sun's radiation, albeit of course not as strong as Venus'. Also - here is the new research - the Moon interferes with the Earth's magnetotail. Ions which would otherwise keep blasting beyond 1 AU get recombined. This not only creates water, but the water ends up pulled back to Earth. Where the Moon is in the way; far side, at that. Which border circle includes the poles.

I'd constrain this process to our times when the Earth has a magnetosphere, which it didn't always. I take it this must be newer water. Also the Moon was closer in older aeons and the sun dimmer, but these factors might be negligible over this ('zoic) aeon in question.

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