NASA says 10 dump truck loads of lunar surface can get blown away from a strong solar blast
Some 100 to 200 tons of lunar material – the equivalent of 10 dump truck loads – could be stripped off the lunar surface during the typical 2-day passage of one of the Sun’s intense Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), according to William Farrell, Dynamic Response of the Environment At the Moon (DREAM) team lead at NASA Goddard. The DREAM team is, among other projects, is studying the impact of CMEs on the moon for the first time.
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A strong CME may contain around a billion tons of plasma moving at up to a million miles per hour in a cloud many times the size of Earth. So in addition to removing a surprisingly large amount of material from the lunar surface, this could be a major method of atmospheric loss for planets like Mars that are unprotected by a global magnetic field, NASA stated.
The team used data from satellite observations that revealed this enrichment as input to their model. For example, helium ions comprise about four percent of the normal solar wind, but observations reveal that during a CME, they can increase to over 20%. When this enrichment is combined with the increased density and velocity of a CME, the highly charged, heavy ions in CMEs can eject or what the team calls “sputter” 50 times more material than a normal solar wind.
NASA added that solar storms dramatically affect the Earth’s magnetic field and are responsible for intense Northern and Southern aurora.
It added that while certain areas of the surface of Mars are magnetized, Mars does not have a magnetic field that surrounds the entire planet. Therefore, CME gases have a direct path to sputter and erode that planet’s upper atmosphere. In late 2013, NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission that will orbit the Red Planet to investigate exactly how solar activity, including CMEs, removes the atmosphere. Another launch, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere And Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) – expected in 2013 — will be able to test the impact of CMEs on the moon.
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