Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-kp629 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T14:47:23.356Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

2.2.5 Electrostatic Disruption of Lunar Dust Particles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

John W. Rhee
John W. Rhee*
Affiliation:
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana 47803 Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

An investigation has been made to study a possibility that dust particles might catastrophically explode on the lunar surface due to electrostatic charging. It is shown that for the dark side along the terminator zone, dust balls and compact stony particles of micron and submicron sizes will be blown up if their surface potential is as low as a kilovolt negative. This mechanism will not operate on the sunlit side because the potential is only 3.5 ~ 20 volts positive. Some of these fragments may possibly levitate in the vicinity of the terminator.

Information

Type
2 In Situ Measurements of Interplanetary Dust
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 31: Interplanetary Dust and Zodiacal Light , 1976 , pp. 238 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Springer-Verlag 1976

References

Berg, O. E., Richardson, F. F., Rhee, John W., and Auer, S., Preliminary Results of a Cosmic Dust Experiment on the Moon, Geophys. Res. Letters, 1, 289–290, 1974.Google Scholar
Freeman, J. W., and Hills, H. K., The lunar surface potential and plasma sheath effects, A paper to be presented at the Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, December, 1974.Google Scholar
Gold, T., The lunar surface, Mon. Not. Royal Astron. Soc, 115, #6, 585, 1955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, T., Processes on the Lunar Surface, in the Moon, edited by Kopal, Z. and Mikhailov, Z. K., 433–439, Academic Press, New York, 1962.Google Scholar
Knott, K., Electrostatic Charging of the Lunar Surface and Possible Consequences, J. Geophys. Res., 78, 3172–3175, 1973.Google Scholar
Öpik, E. J., Interplanetary Dust and Terrestrial Accretion of Meteoric Matter, Irish Astron. J., 4, 84–135, 1956.Google Scholar
Rennilson, J. J., and Criswell, D. R., Surveyor observations of lunar horizon-glow, The Moon, 10, #2, June, 1974.Google Scholar
Rhee, J. W., Lunar dust potential, Space Res. XI, 275–277, 1972.Google Scholar
Rhee, J. W., Electrostatic disruption of lunar dust particles, Univ. of Md. Technical Report No. 75-030, October, 1974.Google Scholar
Singer, S. F., and Walker, E. H., Electrostatic Dust Transport on the Lunar Surface, Icarus, 1, 112–120, 1962.Google Scholar