Moon Storms

12.07.2005

An old Apollo experiment is telling researchers something new and surprising about the
moon.

December 7, 2005: Every lunar morning, when the sun first peeks over the dusty soil of
the moon after two weeks of frigid lunar night, a strange storm stirs the surface.

The next time you see the moon, trace your finger along the terminator, the dividing line
between lunar night and day. That's where the storm is. It's a long and skinny dust storm,
stretching all the way from the north pole to the south pole, swirling across the surface,
following the terminator as sunrise ceaselessly sweeps around the moon.

Never heard of it? Few have. But scientists are increasingly confident that the storm is real.

The evidence comes from an old Apollo experiment called LEAM, short for Lunar Ejecta
and Meteorites. "Apollo 17 astronauts installed LEAM on the moon in 1972," explains
Timothy Stubbs of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center. "It was designed to look for dust kicked up by small meteoroids hitting the moon's
surface."

More at: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/07dec_moonstorms.htm