Space’s inhospitality for life is well known, with its freezing temperatures, lack of oxygen and unimaginable pressures. But the extraterrestrial environment is even harsher then first thought – for the Sun spews such violent radiation that it is capable of creating “sunburn” on the moon’s surface, a NASA study has shown. Everything in the solar system is constantly being blasted by the Sun’s deadly radiation.
Fortunately for life on Earth, our planet’s magnetic field shelters the planet’s surface from this brutal cosmic energy.
However, this magnetic field is not powerful enough to extend this shield to the moon.
Our celestial satellite’s surface is consequently exposed to the brute force of solar wind particles.
New data collected by the ARTEMIS mission suggest that a combination of solar wind and the moon’s magnetic field are in fact responsible for the distinctive patterns of dark and light scars, which have pulled astronomers over the ages.
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NASA’s ARTEMIS mission — which stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics, centres around two satellites orbiting the moon.
One such example space “sunburn” is the lunar swirl called Reiner Gamma, one of the most prominent on the Moon.
This was captured in exquisite detail by the US space agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2018.
Reiner Gamma and the scores of other swirls on the moon are now believed be a form of sunburn created by the interaction of solar wind and the magnetic field of the moon’s crust.
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The moon’s surface is exposed to any and all radiation coming its way from space, and the only protection it has is from small magnetic rocks in the moon’s crust and surface.
These provide the lunar surface with small and localised pockets of protection from solar wind.
Andrew Poppe, a scientist at the University of California said: ”Sometimes you put on sunscreen and you miss, like, a tiny little bit.
“And then you have a really bright red spot on your skin where you missed it.
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Bright areas in the swirls were also found to be “less weathered than their surroundings.”
These swirls are certainly too small to protect astronauts that go to the Moon.
But they could point to new techniques to protect future astronauts or lunar settlers safe from the perils of deadly space radiation.
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