Dust adheres to the boots of Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt in 1972. Credit: NASA
A group led by the University of Colorado Boulder is pioneering a brand-new service to the issue of spring cleansing on the moon: Why not zap away the gunk utilizing a beam of electrons?
The research study, released just recently in the journal Acta Astronautica, marks the most recent to check out a consistent, and possibly unexpected, misstep in humankind’s imagine colonizing the moon: dust. Astronauts walking or driving over the lunar surface area kick up big amounts of this great product, likewise called regolith.
“It’s really annoying,” stated Xu Wang, a research study partner in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder. “Lunar dust sticks to all kinds of surfaces—spacesuits, solar panels, helmets—and it can damage equipment.”
So he and his coworkers established a possible repair—one that utilizes an electron beam, a gadget that shoots out a focused (and safe) stream of negatively-charged, low-energy particles. In the brand-new research study, the group intended such a tool at a variety of filthy surface areas within a vacuum chamber. And, they found, the dust simply flew away.
“It literally jumps off,” stated lead author Benjamin Farr, who finished the work as an undergraduate trainee in physics at CU Boulder.
The scientists still have a long method to precede real-life astronauts will have the ability to utilize the innovation to do their day-to-day cleaning. But, Farr stated, the group’s early findings recommend that electron-beam dustbusters might be a component of moon bases in the not-too-distant future.
Spent gunpowder
The news might be music to the ears of numerous Apollo-age astronauts. Several of these area leaders grumbled about moon dust, which frequently withstands efforts at cleaning up even after energetic brushing. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who checked out the moon as a member of Apollo 17 in 1972, established an allergy to the product and has actually stated that it smelled like “spent gunpowder.”
The issue with lunar dust, Wang described, is that it isn’t anything like the things that develops on bookshelves on Earth. Moon dust is continuously bathed in radiation from the sun, a barrage that provides the product an electrical charge. That charge, in turn, makes the dust additional sticky, nearly like a sock that’s simply come out of the drier. It likewise has an unique structure.
A microscopic lense view of NASA-manufactured lunar “simulant” created to look like moon dust. Credit: EFFECT laboratory
“Lunar dust is very jagged and abrasive, like broken shards of glass,” Wang stated.
The concern facing his group was then: How do you unstick this naturally clingy compound?
Electron beams provided an appealing service. According to a theory established from current clinical research studies of how dust naturally lofts on the lunar surface area, such a gadget might turn the electrical charges on particles of dust into a weapon versus them. If you struck a layer dust with a stream of electrons, Wang stated, that dirty surface area will gather extra unfavorable charges. Pack sufficient charges into the areas in between the particles, and they might start to press each other away—similar to magnets do when the incorrect ends are required together.
“The charges become so large that they repel each other, and then dust ejects off of the surface,” Wang stated.
Electron showers
To test the concept, he and his coworkers packed a vacuum chamber with numerous products covered in a NASA-produced “lunar simulant” created to look like moon dust.
And sure enough, after intending an electron beam at those particles, the dust put off, normally in simply a couple of minutes. The technique dealt with a wide variety of surface areas, too, consisting of spacesuit material and glass. This brand-new innovation targets at cleaning up the finest dust particles, which are hard to eliminate utilizing brushes, Wang stated. The technique had the ability to tidy dirty surface areas by approximately about 75-85%.
A vacuum chamber on the CU Boulder school. Credit: EFFECT laboratory
“It worked pretty well, but not well enough that we’re done,” Farr stated.
The scientists are presently try out brand-new methods to increase the cleansing power of their electron beam.
But research study coauthor Mihály Horányi, a teacher in LASP and the Department of Physics at CU Boulder, stated that the innovation has genuine capacity. NASA has actually explore other methods for shedding lunar dust, such as by embedding networks of electrodes into spacesuits. An electron beam, nevertheless, may be a lot more affordable and much easier to present.
Horányi envisions that a person day, lunar astronauts might merely leave their spacesuits hanging up in an unique space, and even outside their environments, and tidy them after investing a long day kicking up dust exterior. The electrons would do the rest.
“You could just walk into an electron beam shower to remove fine dust,” he stated.
Reference: “Dust mitigation technology for lunar exploration utilizing an electron beam” by B. Farr, X. Wang, J. Goree, I. Hahn, U. Israelsson and M. Horányi, 8 August 2020, Acta Astronautica.
DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2020.08.003
Other coauthors on the brand-new research study consist of John Goree of the University of Iowa and Inseob Hahn and Ulf Israelsson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
