NASA spacecraft finds glowing neon gas on moon

American space agency, NASA has said that it believes that there is an abundance of neon deposits on the moon.

However, the moon’s atmosphere is an exosphere, which means that it’s so thin that its atoms rarely collide.

A speculation for decades that the moon’s thin atmosphere contains neon, which is known for use in electric signs on Earth with its typical characteristsics of intense glow has come true finally with NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft confirming the existence of the gas for the first time.

Also in the moon’s exosphere are helium and argon, and their concentrations vary depending on the time of day.

Argon-40 results from the decay of naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40, found in the rocks of all the terrestrial planets as a leftover from their formation.

As this constant stream of charged particles from the sun encounters the moon, heavier elements remain on the surface while lighter and more volatile elements like neon and argon return to space… except for the small portion that get trapped by gravity.

“It is essential to study concerning the lunar exosphere earlier than sustained human exploration considerably alters it”, Benna famous.

There’s not sufficient neon so that the Moon visibly shines as its atmosphere is very tenuous around a 100 trillion fold less thick than Earth’s sea level atmosphere.

Though not showy, surface boundary exospheres are “the most common class of atmosphere in our solar system”, said Sarah Noble, LADEE’s program scientist, “yet it is one we don’t know much about”. “One could not help to notice that this region happens to be where potassium-40 is most abundant on the surface”.

Since the moon’s environment is so skinny, rocket exhaust and outgassing from spacecraft might simply change its composition. So there may be a connection between the atmospheric argon, the surface potassium and deep interior sources.

A second shocking conduct of argon was that the general quantity within the lunar exosphere was not fixed over time. Instead, it increased and then decreased by about 25 percent during the course of the LADEE mission. In response to Benna, this transient supply of argon could also be the results of enhanced outgassing from the floor that’s triggered by tidal stress on the moon. “This helium is being produced at a rate equivalent to about 7 liters per second at standard atmospheric pressure”, Dr Benna said. “These discoveries spotlight the restrictions of present exospheric fashions, and the necessity for extra refined ones sooner or later”.

Launched in September 2013 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, LADEE began orbiting the Moon on October 6, 2014 and started gathering science data on November 10, 2014.