I wonder if the human race would ever considered space travel and colonizing planets possible if we didn't have a moon just sitting out there within our grasp?
If we didn’t have a moon, I don’t think you and I would be sitting here as we are now. It has contributed so much to our life here with the way it has went hand in hand with our own planet with lunar tides, slowing down the spinning (which basically curbs strong winds and storms along with giving us a vital amount of daily sunlight for photosynthesis compared to the estimated 6hr days we’d have without it), likely more asteroid impacts on Earth with no moon to pull them to its gravitational field, our own gravitational bubble would be nonexistent, plate tectonics would basically be null (which has helped shape our terrain), and even precious metals that we use in our every day life even rely on our moon. It’s but a small rock in the sky to gaze at to many, but if it wasn’t there, we couldn’t even be able to sit and fantasize or imagine how life would be without it because life would be significantly altered intelligence-wise.
@@TwoBs That's dangerously close to invoking the anthropic principle. The fact is we don't know what the requirements are for life and it may have still been possible for complex life to develop even absent a large moon.
The shock to the astronaut is relatively easy to solve by adding conductive materials into the suit, allowing it to act like a faraday cage. More of a problem for the sensitive electronics that assist the astronauts, and any vehicles they are in. In fact, if done properly this phenomenon could be used to recharge batteries.
I remember reading an SF novel describing a mission to the Moon's pole, and those electric charges where a BIG problem for the explorers. They had a problem with the visor of their suits not getting the same charge as the dust around them and getting covered with dust, blinding them. It got worse when they realized that the dusting pads they have would generate a positive charge on the visor.
@@lorenzoblum868 destroyed it??? You're still here and breathing aren't you. You still have food to eat and apparently an internet to make your stupid comment with. But yeah destroyed planet and all yeah I get it... Go virtue signal somewhere else. Maybe a bar you might get laid for once who knows.
I also understood that a massive issue is the physical properties of lunar regolith itself. At the microscopic level it has very sharp and tiny edges, that wore into the Apollo suits...when examined upon return to Earth, it was calculated that that suit technology was beginning to fail on the longer missions, and that a suits usefulness was to be counted in days, not even weeks. This is one reason I am very sceptical about a Mars colony, or even mission, in our lifetimes.
I think, and I might be wrong it was a while ago, they’re looking at a way to counter that by giving the suits surfaces negative electrical charge relative to the regolith to reduce the effect.
@@anon_y_mousse Uh, my bad, didn't expect to run into a bunch of Linux users right off the bat :) Don't think I count as one, dual booting Ubuntu under Gnome :))
I read a pair of novels a few years ago discussing exactly the electrostatic regolith problem (and also moonquakes!), Moon Beam and Moon Tracks. Excellent writing and great science in there, and this video gives me even more explanation of just what's going on, when talking about the Moon's surface. Thank you for keeping everything so clear and straightforward - for someone like me who knows just enough to know I don't hardly know anything, it really helps me understand!
The electrostatic charge can be increased enough to levitate a vehicle a metre or so above the surface, if they have the same charge. An MIT experiment tested out the possibility in an Earth lab. The novel I'm writing now is about a lunar racing championship with such hover racers.
Man, your content is orders of magnitude more informative, concise and enjoyable than anything NASA puts out in terms of educational material. I hope you never get tired of doing this!
I would think an insulator is the very last thing your want in a spacesuit to combat electrostatic discharge. In fact, you want it to be conductive so that it discharges any field the astronaut wanders into. Basically, you're making them a walking faraday cage/lightning conductor.
Good call..) I think it would be very useful to high-altitude nuke a crater to melt the regolith and create a dust free environment for rocket landing and habitation.. doesn't have to be nuclear, could be chemical.. some sort of space thermite could work.. or maybe some acid that eats it up and lets it form something solid to land on.. Feel like Nasa is still living in it's space-port cardboard box and not letting anybody else in..)
You don't want it to be purely conductive, though. You do want electricity to discharge through the suit but you still need to prevent it from discharging through the wearer. As such, an outer conductive layer over an insulated inner layer would be closer to an ideal setup.
Yeah, a layer of a few atoms of Aluminium or Gold would help for the shock hazard, but would it also help against the Regolith sticking to any surface? To act against electrostatic when weighing substances in the lab, earlier we used to dip the spatulas in Uranium solution. But maybe it's not such a perfect idea to dip astronauts in it ;)
Well there would need to be some way for any built up charge to be discharged without discharging through the person in the suit. Some sort of material between the wearer and whatever discharge system is implemented is definitely necessary.
Would it be a possibility to stick giant metal rods into the ground around these conductive areas to capture these ions and generate some sort of power for any human settlement?
That would be awesome. Can you imagine them powering a water collector using that energy. Generating all the heat they need to melt the ice and possibly if there's extra performing electrolysis on the water to make deuterium.
@@ItachiUchiha-br8ig While you are right, don't you think your degree would be better used helping others unterstand what you understand, rather than using it to make yourself look good, just to put others down?
@@trueKENTUCKY It is actually the same kind of electricity, just not the same type of energy. Obviously the ground being charged like this is not the same as current running through a wire, but ultimately all you would need to change that is setting up wires correctly. If one were to connect the positively and negatively charged parts of one of those craters, a usuable current would be conducted by that connection, as long as the solar wind keeps blowing, so that the charges are not equalized. Ultimately, like with all types of potential energy, it just needs a small but spezific adjustment to make the energy usuable.
What I find most appealing of the low temperatures on the moon, is that superconductors can be maintained without liquid helium or nitrogen. Frictionless machinery and ultra efficient electronics.
@@ooooneeee Even if it required liquid coolant, youd just have a big tank of some pressurized gas with a small pump and a line running through the machine. Like a liquid cooled PC, the tank would remain at a constant temperature without refrigeration. Not sure if it could stay cold enough for super conducting though, and the added weight on a shuttle of giant tanks of coolant would be expensive to launch
@@uku4171 I’m sure there are work arounds. And with superconduction, the heat is greatly reduced. Electronics heat up because the system isn’t efficient. Electrons bounce around and create heat, as well as mechanical friction. What I picture is an AC power generator where the superconductors use quantum levitation so they never physically touch anything as they spin through the coils to generate the electricity. If all the circuits were also superconductive, the heat generation should be near zero. In say a no gravity environment (not the moon obviously), they should spin for a real long time with minimal energy put into the system to maintain the spin of the generator. At least on paper...
The charged particles at the crater rim - This pretty much fully explains Transient Lunar Phenomenon (the flashes of light seen through telescopes etc but had yet to be fully explained). Fascinating stuff.
Such crisp yet engaging and detailed presentation Alex🤍👌🏽💙 Loved the production and always a pleasure to see you bring us such well researched and fact checked mini documentaries.
Perhaps the..."Aristarchus Crater" [docking bay entrance] on the Moon would be of interest. Mankind is "Project Organic Intelligence". MOONS - Main Observatory of Organic New Species. Xeno's Observe as their ants Split Atoms. Xeno's start to panic as their ants Collide Particles. Dark Matter will destroy the colony... If the "ants" play with it. Once they crank up the voltage at CERN and 3 upspin particles collide with 3 down spin particles - instant Black Hole. Can't turn that off or contain it.
It's amazing that we're not only able to detect these hazards in extraterrestrial climes without ever coming into contact with them, but are able to devise finely-tuned countermeasures that are tested by accurate simulations that can be produced on Earth.
You are actually, lol I don't watch many movies and I recognize the importance of robotics, but there's also something to be gained, such as any mis-haps being in orbit or the lunar surface, can be easier addressed. Plus if there's anything new or not in the computer, it may not know what to think of it, humans do need breaks, but while robotics are by idea, eternal, at least in a sense, people are good at going with the punches. I think sending both would be the best route, especially since something might break down, or may require some cleaning. So no movie for me! :D
@@kurtpena5462 I just think that if we're going to the moon, Best to have both during the mission, we definitely don't have the means to send off anything more than Rovers without any issues, we can however have a great team that's dedicated for the mission, I mean, no matter what we think, NASA does NASA stuff, but yee, I see both sides, and can definitely see where you are coming from, but I also agree, if they want to go back, bring some people there to help make things go smoothly, have a great and safe day!
This was the most informative and most surprising thing I've seen in a long while with the negative charges, teflon and rigolite. I've never heard anything about it beforehand. Thanks for this video. Such problems like these are things that the common person would never be able to imagine.
@@95sandipan This is the kind of advertising I don't really mind. It has a calm approach, with no silly drama, and it acts as a sponsor. It's similar to early TV advertising. I tune out the loud, drama-filled advertisements I see on UA-cam.
Polysulfone would be a better replacement for rubber. It has a high dielectric constant and is resistant to temperature fluctuations, and is used in medical equipment because it can hold up in an autoclave
In scifi movies when the heros spaceship breaks down they need to find a source of immense energy to repower their ship. Usually a lightning bolt, or some other natural phenomenon. It would be really cool to see them use the electrical energy from a solar wind crater!
I was thinking the same, it’s a high voltage battery waiting to be tapped. All they need is a faraday cage, like the ones Tesla built. Plus it’s the least hot area, and where the water is.
One of the amazing things about your videos is it inspires some very good feedback from many people in the comments. Some very thought out. Awesome Astrum
Thank you Alex for the video! Electric field on the moon is one of the most scifi things I ever heard ever. Again, reality always stranger than fiction. And chiming what others have said here, maybe we can utilise it in the future!
The electric field is generated by the sun, and reacts with planets and moons largely at their poles where it is mediated by any existing magnetic field. Electromagnetic forces and plasma fill the solar system. Accepted science--the gravitational model--has little to say on all of this, but being that scientists are constantly surprised by what we discover in space, adjustments to our understanding will have to be made.
The "large" amount of water ice on the moon, really isnt all that much. Its actually slightly less than the total volume of water in Lake Erie, considering that water would be needed for industrial, farming, and survival. that isnt really a long term solution; especialy considering there is no way 100% of it could be converted without a statistically significant portion of it lost in processing or unobtainable due to location
All long term human space exploration is impossible as we cannot survive for long outside our environment however hard we try and replace ecosystems with machines ,let alone physical and mental health issues .
If you want to protect astronauts from electric shocks, the last thing you want to do use use an insulating material. Weave metal into the suit so the electricity can flow harmlessly through it to ground. Also - 100KV sounds scary but it's not the voltage that kills you in an electric shock. It's the current. How much charge is there above the lunar surface? A tiny amount is harmless no matter how high the voltage.
the issue isn't just getting electrocuted tho, it's the charge sticking to suits and picking up the toxic/abrasive regolith. if the suit is so mediocre that it can't protect its wearer from 100kV... then what about cosmic rays and 200+C temps? in the end, those issues are still less of a problem than tracking regolith into living areas, imo. even if you only pick up 1 grain per trip per person, the grains will eventually accumulate within the habitat and contaminate it. the solution has to be a very complete one, that can make sure any leftover grains after discharging the suits can be 100% vacuumed up somehow. the electric charges on the moon is an issue mainly because these charges could make the regolith harder to manage.
@@alveolate who says the suits will have to come inside? It'd be easier to design them to be put on and taken off in an airlock so they never make contact with the living space than trying to find a way to completely clean them; that way they only need to be clean enough to continue operation and you can just have a full cleaning operation of them separately.
Truly brilliant, educational and entertaining content, consistently. We're so lucky to have access to this well made quality content. I've never said thank you so.. thank you!
The accumulation of static charge is like winning the lottery. Placing a large surface area antenna 1 or 2 km above the surface to collect the protons, and running a wire to a web of closely spaced copper wires placed over the permanently dark side of the crater will generate an electric current, which could be used to power machinery, lasers, etc.. As a very small bonus, the combination of protons and electrons will generate Hydrogen in very small amounts. The electrostatic potential difference, if held in check, could be released in bursts, into a pellet of He3-H2, creating fusion, and a huge amount of energy. Even without fusion, the use of the solar wind to generate energy will give Moon inhabitants an energy source that will last 1 billion years. It could also be used in low Earth orbit. This has already been researched and proposed
The uneducated here: Sounds like turning a problem into a solution. Which might be good. Would there not be an issue with the negative consequences of converting polarities of/on the moon to the other? [All things are interconnected.]
I once became electrocuted by an electric fence of 10000 V DC, but it was conciderably less painful than being electrocuted in my left arm by putting my fingers into a lamp exposing me for 230 V AC, which was very painful. So even though a voltage of thousands of volt sounds bad, it might be ignorable depending on amperage.
It's ignorable because of the negligible charge. You get the full expected amperage for an instant, but it discharges so fast that the voltage immediately drops to near zero. Using the water/electricity analogy, it's like getting hit by a high pressure jet of water that's only a nanometer long. The high pressure jet might be able to cut steel normally, but it's so brief it can't actually damage anything before it dissipates its energy.
Great video. Now in August 2023, India's Chandrayaan-3 has soft landed successfully on Moon's south pole , becoming first country to land on south pole 🎉🎉. It would provide polar region data to NASA to support incoming Artemis missions to moon
@@fluffypuffyboy586 Its an Indian mission not NASA mission. NASA is not involved in any way in Chandrayaan missions of India. Nasa itself hasnt landed on moon in last 50 years as they no longer have that capacity :D
I am not sure if NASA had found water on the moon first however even if it did find it did not disclose the finding, so effectively it makes chandrayaan the first mission to find water on moon.
2:26 If my math is correct, 600 billion kg of water ice when transformed into liquid water amounts to a cube with sides of about 8434 meters. Water ice however is about 9% less dense than liquid water. so that would mean one huge ice cube with sides of about 8680 meters (I think, not sure)
Napkin math: 600 billion kg = 8434m, 600 million kg = 843m, 600,000 kg = 84m, 600 kg = 8.4m, 600g = 84cm? Looks like you got the decimal point wrong (at least if 1 billion means 1000 million).
This is really interesting because if we set up Lunar colonies elsewhere, apart from the poles, solar powered instruments would have to contend with long periods of time without sunlight.
thats why you don't use solar lmao, you use heat power storage to run stirling engines. that way you can use the natural hot and cold cycles to run a heat engine since both have compressive and expansive effects.
@@AppleManiagaming True. I was suggesting Solar for the polar regions (where it might be easiest to to account for the day/night cycle). For your suggestion, it's fortunate that the Moon's orbit is so predictable.
2:55 Imagine they recorded a max of 127 because they accidentally used a 7bit or 8b digital thermometer (a 7b unsigned integer has a maximum value of base2 1111111 = base10 127, same for a signed 8b). Also a nice coincidence that the timestamp is the 8bit max value. Both limits are Mersenne numbers, one of them prime (127)
There wouldn't be any way to tell that it was low gravity. The LM cabin was TINY, with barely any room to move around in, let alone jump. In fact, there wasn't even enough room for both of them to lie down, one had to hang a hammock across the cabin and sleep above the one sleeping on the floor.
@@Ewumm You know not everything is on the internet, right? If it hasn't been digitized and made public, it's not on the internet. And even if it has, doesn't mean it's easy to find.
@@jessepollard7132 Haha, your replies are SO enlightening. Look, I know enough astronomy and physics to know what I don't know so I prefer to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about - even if they're not mainstream. After all, that's what science is about, isn't it? Have a nice day, troll.
Could the build up in charge be mitigated with the use of a network of grounding rods and cables to provide a path for the charge to be neutralised? Alternatively could this charge be stored to provide a source of power?
exactly what I was thinking - just use some grounding rods and chuck some cables over the crater wall. Edit: better yet tether in some super-capacitors to capture that electricity, it's free real estate.
Came down to the comments to say something similar. It means we can potentially harvest energy from our star in a manner different to what we have used before. The question is... How effective will it be?
Wouldn't it be more effective and logical to have kind of a "lightning rod" going from head to toes? So it would lead electricity thru it. Or better yet, why not make use of the FREE energy and turn it into power to charge batteries? If batteries are full, then extra energy could be simply turned into heat or light, just have powerful heater or lights on the suit, so when batteries are full, rest of it is just spent on lights or heater.
I'd guess the ground isn't conductive enough to just stomp around and maintaining good contact. You could walk around with a ground wire tether, but, assuming this static electricity can be used at all, it might be better to do that in fixed stations. Even if you can lug around a lot of equipment with 1/6 of earth gravity :)
Thank You. I've wondered but never seen or heard anything much about why we haven't gone to the moon's poles, where the alleged water is. As I've always said and still do: Learn to live on the moon first, before trying Mars. Seems simple common sense. Mars in my opinion, in the near future is a "one way mission". Thank You. This has been very educational and good narration.
It seems to be a bit disingenuous to say how dangerous the electrical discharge can be. The voltage could be very high with little to no current. It would, like you said, be like being shocked after rubbing a carpet.
@@Nah_Bohdi ikr love all the wanna be scientists in the video comments, I'm sure space agencies have thought of the basic solutions they all throw around
True, voltage is not even a unit of charge, and nasa is still planning to land there and not designing their suits to deal with a “high chance of being electrocuted” by static.
it actually seems like the best place to learn to thrive off earth considering there are atmospheres out there that would make things easier than on the moon
First thing I thought of when hearing about the amount of electric charge was How can we tap into this to power our equipment? As to the dust. It has a charge, so a wire mesh in the spacesuit should allow us to just repel the dust with a weak electric charge on the surface of the suit. The mesh should also conduct any buildup of static charge to the ground before any significant voltage can accumulate.
How does the estimated quantity of water on the moon, compare to existing bodies of water on earth (Lake Superior? Lake Baikal? or a percentage of an ocean?)
2:30 C'mon Alex... visualising water mass by comparison with cars? Seriously? What about "600 billion kilograms of ice [provided billion means 10^9 in this case] are equivalent to 600 million cubic meters, or 240 million Olympic swimming pools, or one twelfth of Loch Ness (without Nessy)"? ;) 7:00 That's interesting. Usually, Teflon™ and other perfluorinated materials tend to a negative electrostatic charge themselves. So actually I'd expect that negatively charged particles are repelled and not attracted. Polyamides, e.g. Kevlar™, tend to a positive electrostatic charge, and might thus act attractive rather than repellent. Maybe mixing those materials would help.
@@jacksmith7726 maybe yes, but it's also difficult to visualise 600 million metric tons of water. Maybe a cube of water with ca. 850 meters length on each side would work.
We have “high temperature” super-conducting tape that could be useful for draining the charge from a mass of solid water, provided the temperature were sufficiently low and was never exposed to solar radiation. I think there are some whose critical temperature is above LN (-196C). I don’t recall the surface temperatures that were mentioned (-230?) but it sounds as if a long tape that was below it’s Tc could be used as a tether, or unrolled / hurled /shot from a point of attachment just inside the rim of the crater, down into the center, to drain the charge, or create a path of equipotential for safe access. Just thinking “out loud”…
It always blows my mind that we went to the moon landed and there’s not holiday to celebrate this? Like wtf. I know I know companies would hate another holiday.
There are plenty of more important discoveries that dont have a holiday. Science isnt regarded particularly highly in the creation of holidays. I cant think of a single one off the top of my head
I wonder how many things scientists have to consider before attempting any missions to satellites and planets. For general public it's like just hop on a rocket and land there but after watching these videos I am learning how deep the scientists think in every angle, research and hardwork to make the missions successful.
Something i just realized. With no dense atmosphere and winds to carry dust, the moon could be a potentionally better place to use solar panels to generate electricity. Of course there is the matter of protecting the panels from solar winds and many objects falling at speed at the moon surface.
Solar wind is not a problem. Your run of the mill solar panels would do just fine against it. The falling object problem is unfixable though so best you can do is pray nothing hits it but the odds are low of it happening anyways.
@@renejean2523 not convenient at all - going into a room and turning on a van-de-Graff generator will get you 300,000 volts in a few seconds. Harmless to nearly everyone without a pacemaker (and even then mostly harmless). the video is mostly overhype.
If it can, is it more efficient than regular old solar panels? Either way, there must be some kind of shock prevention around buildings, so might as well harness it if you can.
@@MolecularMachine I.K.R?!?!? Tons of power, and we're too lazy to use it.. sounds like a space agency problem..) It's a big club and we're not in it..
Possibly a fair point about solar panels still being a better idea. But this might be a cheaper more primitive solution. I am guessing all you need is two sets of conductive sheet metal plates. One set for an anode and one set for a cathode. Easier to repair also.
I suspect that this may be possible, but nobody knows about the practicality of such a system since it can't realistically be tested here on Earth because the conditions don't exist. I would suggest that this may be among the early experiments on the Moon, and will require a period of development before it becomes practical. That said, lunar regolith is surprisingly similar to volcanic ash, and I experienced the ash cloud after Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980. There was _substantial_ static electrical discharge (lightning) which was possibly the most terrifying part of the ordeal.
this video is wired to me cause the information i am getting into is completely new to me and rather had very new insights in my point of view thanks for the video i liked it
At 5:05 , how come the negative charged electrons fall down into the craters rather then the positive ions which are said to be 1000x heavier then the electrons? Wouldn’t the moons gravity cause it to be the other way around?
Hi! I led the WSU liquid nitrogen washing team. One of our papers was just published last week showing 95% dust removal in a terrestrial environment. One of our reports to NASA shows we had higher success in a vacuum environment with over 98% removal by mass. Lmk if you have any questions!
So what was the cause of death? The astronaut received a mild electric shock. And that caused her to die? Well it made her arm jerk, which caused the rover to accelerate off the edge of the cliff...
I love the idea of using the moon's high voltage to somehow install and charge a battery or somehow harnessing the power from almost infinite solar winds. Obviously it would be difficult but it's fun to spitball ideas!
If these lunar crater interior surfaces build up such enormous amounts of electricity, is there a possibility of capturing that electricity to power the bases?
It may be similar to collecting energy from lightning. Enormous capacitors with current limiters and enormous range of current acceptance. Hard to do but possible.
I see Jesse Pollard does not think it will work but I doubt that he has done any research on Tesla's work around that. He made it work on Earth. It could have been proven outside the lab if Wardencliffe had been completed. Now, here we are. Who is to say that we will not find power already on the Moon? Some thought Tesla was an alien...
Some poorly written parts to this video about regolith. The Apollo lander had no airlock. This is why Moon regolith was in the lander cabin. Future human lunar missions will have airlock compartments where outside contaminants will be contained. * PS. regarding the solar wind/electricity problem. (See an article titled; "Hazards of Solar Wind On Moon" by the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute). From that article; "The question of how to safety discharge static electricity in space is an old one, notes Goddard Space Flight Center scientist William Farrell,... As they shuffle along, the astronauts will be like people rubbing their feet on a woolen rug in the winter. Farrell says they may have to wait 100 sec. to discharge the static electric forces they build up after a single step." * NASA has instruments which can measure static electricity using a sensor that is sensitive to any voltage changes in the environment. (See the "Voltage Sensors Monitor Harmful Static" article from NASA Spinoff) With instruments that can measure static electricity, astronauts will not have an insurmountable problem, though moving to and within these craters will be very slow. - The electronics in current robots however would be vulnerable to such high levels of static electricity.
There are some designs that would entirely keep contaminants out, but a simple airlock would not (though better than Apollo). That stuff will get everywhere.
@@agsystems8220; My basic point about lunar regolith in my original post was to mention that no mitigation information for this was provided in the video. * The video correctly states that the problem of lunar regolith for astronauts has been known since the Apollo landings. - What's missing are proposals which have been made (in terms of airlock designs) to mitigate the problem. - Similar mitigation designs have been proposed for Martian habitats because of perchlorate in the Martian regolith. * Your response; @A G Systems wrote ; "a simple airlock would not..." "...keep contaminants out...". * I did not write; "simple airlock" * I wrote; "human lunar missions will have airlock compartments where outside contaminants will be contained." - I'll explain that sentence further. Part of the design will be to keep the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) lunar space suits in a compartment separate from the inner living quarters compartment of the habitat. This separate suit compartment would be within an airlock. - Reference; From NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) abstract; Titled; “Lunar Habitat Airlock/Suitlock” "... lunar airlocks are planned to be used much more often (every other day) in a dusty, gravity environment. Concepts for airlocks were analyzed by … NASA…” “A Suitlock (SL) which shares a pressure bulkhead with the Habitat allowing rear-entry suits to remain on the dusty side while the crew enters/exits the Habitat.” “Objectives… 5. Minimize the intrusion of lunar dust”
I would like to see us send robots to the moon to build living spaces and factories. Would be great to use some of the moons materials to make these. We if we could build rockets on the moon we could eventually launch them into space at 1/32 the energy as from Earth.
@@chrismay2298 I have PhDs in physics and molecular biology and am working in a lab overlooking a Saturn rocket. So my perspective is based upon what I can do.
A good video, however one shortcoming I found is that the animation doesn't explain why the electrons from the Sun should travel downward to hit the inner surface of the Moon crater in the first place. I'd like to chime in with my hypothesis and see if someone can come up with a better explanation: Due to the photoelectric effect, the electromagnetic radiation from the Sun kicks electrons in the atoms on the Moon's surface into space, and since electrons are very light, they can easily surpass the escape velocity. What remains are positively charged ions on the sun-schorched side of the crater. Then, the electrons in the solar wind, which would under other circumstances travel in an (almost) straight line since they're too fast and too light to be affected by Moon's gravity, are actually significantly attracted by the positive charge and change their velocity vector towards the Moon's surface. They travel along a curve that might resemble an arc or a hyperbola (depends on the distribution on the positive charge on the outter slope) and they hit the Moon's ground farther away from the Sun. That however does not explain why the positive particles in the solar wind should follow suit along less curved trajectories - instead I would expect the protons to be repelled by the positively charged surface and leave the Moon's sphere of influence altogether. What do you think?
Chandrayan 3 🇮🇳 landed on the Lunar south pole. India is the first one to land there. If we are looking at setting up a base there, India will have its stake.
All those things Space Astronauts have to encounter is amazing. Everything everywhere seems dangerous to mankind from not being able to breath the air of a given planets, to being frozen, to being burned etc etc etc. We really need to save and protect this Home world we call earth. Theirs no where else that is safe for us. That's why we must be bold and continue to explore space, (the final frontier). I borrowed that last part from Capt Kirk of Star Trek.......
I wonder if the human race would ever considered space travel and colonizing planets possible if we didn't have a moon just sitting out there within our grasp?
If we didn’t have a moon, I don’t think you and I would be sitting here as we are now. It has contributed so much to our life here with the way it has went hand in hand with our own planet with lunar tides, slowing down the spinning (which basically curbs strong winds and storms along with giving us a vital amount of daily sunlight for photosynthesis compared to the estimated 6hr days we’d have without it), likely more asteroid impacts on Earth with no moon to pull them to its gravitational field, our own gravitational bubble would be nonexistent, plate tectonics would basically be null (which has helped shape our terrain), and even precious metals that we use in our every day life even rely on our moon.
It’s but a small rock in the sky to gaze at to many, but if it wasn’t there, we couldn’t even be able to sit and fantasize or imagine how life would be without it because life would be significantly altered intelligence-wise.
@@TwoBs that's not what he means
@@luminis-novum Still answers the question, what's your point?
@@TwoBs That's dangerously close to invoking the anthropic principle. The fact is we don't know what the requirements are for life and it may have still been possible for complex life to develop even absent a large moon.
@@ratemisia this comment is below me.
I never knew that electricity could be such a problem regarding returning to the Moon and going beyond.
Thanks you Astrum !
It's not
Shocking, ain't it.
I'll see myself out
It’s almost like we’re living in an… Electric Universe!
The shock to the astronaut is relatively easy to solve by adding conductive materials into the suit, allowing it to act like a faraday cage. More of a problem for the sensitive electronics that assist the astronauts, and any vehicles they are in. In fact, if done properly this phenomenon could be used to recharge batteries.
@@docwild2867 THATS WILD DOC
I remember reading an SF novel describing a mission to the Moon's pole, and those electric charges where a BIG problem for the explorers. They had a problem with the visor of their suits not getting the same charge as the dust around them and getting covered with dust, blinding them. It got worse when they realized that the dusting pads they have would generate a positive charge on the visor.
whats the novel called?
@@theepicraccoon4589 Rick and Morty go to the Moon
@@theepicraccoon4589 Sandstorm, by Darude
We've conquered Earth and destroyed it. We'll try to conquer space and get crushed.
@@lorenzoblum868 destroyed it??? You're still here and breathing aren't you. You still have food to eat and apparently an internet to make your stupid comment with. But yeah destroyed planet and all yeah I get it... Go virtue signal somewhere else. Maybe a bar you might get laid for once who knows.
Thank you! That was a very interesting presentation of the electrical technical challenges to lunar exploration that I have never heard of before.
I also understood that a massive issue is the physical properties of lunar regolith itself. At the microscopic level it has very sharp and tiny edges, that wore into the Apollo suits...when examined upon return to Earth, it was calculated that that suit technology was beginning to fail on the longer missions, and that a suits usefulness was to be counted in days, not even weeks.
This is one reason I am very sceptical about a Mars colony, or even mission, in our lifetimes.
I think, and I might be wrong it was a while ago, they’re looking at a way to counter that by giving the suits surfaces negative electrical charge relative to the regolith to reduce the effect.
Moon is way more hostile than Mars. Mars has an atmosphere and lower extremes in temperature.
it will take another century before we have humans on mars
I'd like to watch more about extreme obstacles astronauts could face on the moon.
💡
Yeah, that'd be a neat series. Out of curiosity, why do you have your setup b64 encoded as your ID?
@@anon_y_mousse It's a Linux thing, you wouldn't understand :)
@@getsideways7257 As a KDE user, I resemble that remark. :(
@@anon_y_mousse Uh, my bad, didn't expect to run into a bunch of Linux users right off the bat :) Don't think I count as one, dual booting Ubuntu under Gnome :))
I read a pair of novels a few years ago discussing exactly the electrostatic regolith problem (and also moonquakes!), Moon Beam and Moon Tracks. Excellent writing and great science in there, and this video gives me even more explanation of just what's going on, when talking about the Moon's surface. Thank you for keeping everything so clear and straightforward - for someone like me who knows just enough to know I don't hardly know anything, it really helps me understand!
The electrostatic charge can be increased enough to levitate a vehicle a metre or so above the surface, if they have the same charge. An MIT experiment tested out the possibility in an Earth lab. The novel I'm writing now is about a lunar racing championship with such hover racers.
@@TroySpace Awesome!!!
Man, your content is orders of magnitude more informative, concise and enjoyable than anything NASA puts out in terms of educational material. I hope you never get tired of doing this!
They are too busy hiding stuff, like blurring areas on photos, and live feeds blacked out due to having "tech problems" when ET is the frame.
@@noninoni9962 I mean, people are too fucking dumb to not panic when they hear news like aliens actually exist or something.
@@noninoni9962 that’s funnier than the belief humans are going to colonise anywhere off the planet…
Government agencies are in the business of keeping you ignorant, including NASA
@@andellpedro9502 they’re more likely to produce false or misleading information pursuant to furthering their continued existence…
Thanks!
I would think an insulator is the very last thing your want in a spacesuit to combat electrostatic discharge.
In fact, you want it to be conductive so that it discharges any field the astronaut wanders into. Basically, you're making them a walking faraday cage/lightning conductor.
👍Some people don't understand electricity. Faraday cage = GOOD. Let channels EEVBlog or Electroboom, put their 2 cents on this video.
Good call..) I think it would be very useful to high-altitude nuke a crater to melt the regolith and create a dust free environment for rocket landing and habitation.. doesn't have to be nuclear, could be chemical.. some sort of space thermite could work.. or maybe some acid that eats it up and lets it form something solid to land on.. Feel like Nasa is still living in it's space-port cardboard box and not letting anybody else in..)
You don't want it to be purely conductive, though. You do want electricity to discharge through the suit but you still need to prevent it from discharging through the wearer. As such, an outer conductive layer over an insulated inner layer would be closer to an ideal setup.
Yeah, a layer of a few atoms of Aluminium or Gold would help for the shock hazard, but would it also help against the Regolith sticking to any surface?
To act against electrostatic when weighing substances in the lab, earlier we used to dip the spatulas in Uranium solution. But maybe it's not such a perfect idea to dip astronauts in it ;)
Well there would need to be some way for any built up charge to be discharged without discharging through the person in the suit. Some sort of material between the wearer and whatever discharge system is implemented is definitely necessary.
Would it be a possibility to stick giant metal rods into the ground around these conductive areas to capture these ions and generate some sort of power for any human settlement?
Could we have a video about capturing that electricity?
No it's not that kind of electricity lol it's potential electric energy
That would be awesome. Can you imagine them powering a water collector using that energy. Generating all the heat they need to melt the ice and possibly if there's extra performing electrolysis on the water to make deuterium.
@@ItachiUchiha-br8ig While you are right, don't you think your degree would be better used helping others unterstand what you understand, rather than using it to make yourself look good, just to put others down?
@@trueKENTUCKY It is actually the same kind of electricity, just not the same type of energy. Obviously the ground being charged like this is not the same as current running through a wire, but ultimately all you would need to change that is setting up wires correctly.
If one were to connect the positively and negatively charged parts of one of those craters, a usuable current would be conducted by that connection, as long as the solar wind keeps blowing, so that the charges are not equalized.
Ultimately, like with all types of potential energy, it just needs a small but spezific adjustment to make the energy usuable.
What I find most appealing of the low temperatures on the moon, is that superconductors can be maintained without liquid helium or nitrogen.
Frictionless machinery and ultra efficient electronics.
The machines would warm up, though.
@@uku4171 maybe it would be cold enough around the superconductors and machines that passive cooling them with huge radiators would be sufficient.
@@ooooneeee Even if it required liquid coolant, youd just have a big tank of some pressurized gas with a small pump and a line running through the machine. Like a liquid cooled PC, the tank would remain at a constant temperature without refrigeration. Not sure if it could stay cold enough for super conducting though, and the added weight on a shuttle of giant tanks of coolant would be expensive to launch
@@ooooneeee maybe
@@uku4171 I’m sure there are work arounds. And with superconduction, the heat is greatly reduced. Electronics heat up because the system isn’t efficient. Electrons bounce around and create heat, as well as mechanical friction.
What I picture is an AC power generator where the superconductors use quantum levitation so they never physically touch anything as they spin through the coils to generate the electricity. If all the circuits were also superconductive, the heat generation should be near zero. In say a no gravity environment (not the moon obviously), they should spin for a real long time with minimal energy put into the system to maintain the spin of the generator. At least on paper...
This is facisnating. Thank you. It would be fantastic if you could include a bibilography or list of sources in the description!
yes!
The charged particles at the crater rim - This pretty much fully explains Transient Lunar Phenomenon (the flashes of light seen through telescopes etc but had yet to be fully explained). Fascinating stuff.
That would make sense.
Now if we can just figure out where the atmosphere that was found came from.
Such crisp yet engaging and detailed presentation Alex🤍👌🏽💙
Loved the production and always a pleasure to see you bring us such well researched and fact checked mini documentaries.
This guy’s sultry German accent is intoxicating
I love all knowledge of the moon (and the universe). Thanks for yet another educational video!
Perhaps the..."Aristarchus Crater" [docking bay entrance] on the Moon would be of interest. Mankind is "Project Organic Intelligence". MOONS - Main Observatory of Organic New Species. Xeno's Observe as their ants Split Atoms. Xeno's start to panic as their ants Collide Particles. Dark Matter will destroy the colony... If the "ants" play with it. Once they crank up the voltage at CERN and 3 upspin particles collide with 3 down spin particles - instant Black Hole. Can't turn that off or contain it.
It's amazing that we're not only able to detect these hazards in extraterrestrial climes without ever coming into contact with them, but are able to devise finely-tuned countermeasures that are tested by accurate simulations that can be produced on Earth.
Cool story bro.
@@kurtpena5462 Humans can detect change and can make great discoveries, unfortunately the best bot sometimes, is a human bot.
You are actually, lol I don't watch many movies and I recognize the importance of robotics, but there's also something to be gained, such as any mis-haps being in orbit or the lunar surface, can be easier addressed. Plus if there's anything new or not in the computer, it may not know what to think of it, humans do need breaks, but while robotics are by idea, eternal, at least in a sense, people are good at going with the punches. I think sending both would be the best route, especially since something might break down, or may require some cleaning. So no movie for me! :D
cant wait for climate catastrophe counter measures ...oh wait were accelerating the wrong way !
@@kurtpena5462 I just think that if we're going to the moon, Best to have both during the mission, we definitely don't have the means to send off anything more than Rovers without any issues, we can however have a great team that's dedicated for the mission, I mean, no matter what we think, NASA does NASA stuff, but yee, I see both sides, and can definitely see where you are coming from, but I also agree, if they want to go back, bring some people there to help make things go smoothly, have a great and safe day!
I’ve e never said this about any channel and I know I’m just some dude, I love this channel.
This is some of the best content to watch before going to bed. Plus the narrator's voice is so soothing it mellows out my whole body.
This was the most informative and most surprising thing I've seen in a long while with the negative charges, teflon and rigolite. I've never heard anything about it beforehand. Thanks for this video. Such problems like these are things that the common person would never be able to imagine.
Astrum your soothing voice makes my day. Thanks for being amazing!
Alex*
Astrum is commentated by multiple people. Alex just does most of them.
@@ronaldtorbert133 Ohhhhhh Thanks! Cheers Alex :D
I also watch the sponsor with deep interest although I don't use razor
@@95sandipan This is the kind of advertising I don't really mind. It has a calm approach, with no silly drama, and it acts as a sponsor. It's similar to early TV advertising.
I tune out the loud, drama-filled advertisements I see on UA-cam.
Polysulfone would be a better replacement for rubber. It has a high dielectric constant and is resistant to temperature fluctuations, and is used in medical equipment because it can hold up in an autoclave
In scifi movies when the heros spaceship breaks down they need to find a source of immense energy to repower their ship. Usually a lightning bolt, or some other natural phenomenon. It would be really cool to see them use the electrical energy from a solar wind crater!
I was thinking the same, it’s a high voltage battery waiting to be tapped. All they need is a faraday cage, like the ones Tesla built. Plus it’s the least hot area, and where the water is.
One of the amazing things about your videos is it inspires some very good feedback from many people in the comments. Some very thought out. Awesome Astrum
Whoever is scoring the music to this channel is killing it. Really cool stuff.
Thank you Alex for the video! Electric field on the moon is one of the most scifi things I ever heard ever. Again, reality always stranger than fiction.
And chiming what others have said here, maybe we can utilise it in the future!
The electric field is generated by the sun, and reacts with planets and moons largely at their poles where it is mediated by any existing magnetic field. Electromagnetic forces and plasma fill the solar system. Accepted science--the gravitational model--has little to say on all of this, but being that scientists are constantly surprised by what we discover in space, adjustments to our understanding will have to be made.
The "large" amount of water ice on the moon, really isnt all that much. Its actually slightly less than the total volume of water in Lake Erie, considering that water would be needed for industrial, farming, and survival. that isnt really a long term solution; especialy considering there is no way 100% of it could be converted without a statistically significant portion of it lost in processing or unobtainable due to location
All long term human space exploration is impossible as we cannot survive for long outside our environment however hard we try and replace ecosystems with machines ,let alone physical and mental health issues .
@@MyKharli they said we would never fly too…..
Let’s not be obtuse, how much is Lake Erie expressed as weight in the generic standard “cars”? Let’s be sure we’re comparing apples to apples here.
And you've been there lol
Spoilsport
This is incredibly illuminating and detailed. No wonder returning to the Moon is taking so much time and preparation! 🚀⚡🌕
Returning? LOL ....maybe there was never a first time .... LOL
Bunch of nonsense from NotASpaceAgency
Alex.... Your subjects are fascinating, but none so much as your segue to Henson Shaving !
Space science is extremely important for humanity.
If you want to protect astronauts from electric shocks, the last thing you want to do use use an insulating material. Weave metal into the suit so the electricity can flow harmlessly through it to ground.
Also - 100KV sounds scary but it's not the voltage that kills you in an electric shock. It's the current. How much charge is there above the lunar surface? A tiny amount is harmless no matter how high the voltage.
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles LOL. I'm now imagining some kids saying, "High current? Nothing to worry about. Let's climb."
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles
Because it does and with the current to go with it.
Voltage is what is recognized universally by even the poorly "edumacated"
the issue isn't just getting electrocuted tho, it's the charge sticking to suits and picking up the toxic/abrasive regolith. if the suit is so mediocre that it can't protect its wearer from 100kV... then what about cosmic rays and 200+C temps?
in the end, those issues are still less of a problem than tracking regolith into living areas, imo. even if you only pick up 1 grain per trip per person, the grains will eventually accumulate within the habitat and contaminate it. the solution has to be a very complete one, that can make sure any leftover grains after discharging the suits can be 100% vacuumed up somehow.
the electric charges on the moon is an issue mainly because these charges could make the regolith harder to manage.
@@alveolate who says the suits will have to come inside? It'd be easier to design them to be put on and taken off in an airlock so they never make contact with the living space than trying to find a way to completely clean them; that way they only need to be clean enough to continue operation and you can just have a full cleaning operation of them separately.
@@anthonymullings8539 you make it sound as tho you can just take em off and stash em outside like you don't need a connecting chamber
Truly brilliant, educational and entertaining content, consistently. We're so lucky to have access to this well made quality content. I've never said thank you so.. thank you!
The accumulation of static charge is like winning the lottery. Placing a large surface area antenna 1 or 2 km above the surface to collect the protons, and running a wire to a web of closely spaced copper wires placed over the permanently dark side of the crater will generate an electric current, which could be used to power machinery, lasers, etc.. As a very small bonus, the combination of protons and electrons will generate Hydrogen in very small amounts. The electrostatic potential difference, if held in check, could be released in bursts, into a pellet of He3-H2, creating fusion, and a huge amount of energy. Even without fusion, the use of the solar wind to generate energy will give Moon inhabitants an energy source that will last 1 billion years. It could also be used in low Earth orbit. This has already been researched and proposed
The uneducated here: Sounds like turning a problem into a solution. Which might be good. Would there not be an issue with the negative consequences of converting polarities of/on the moon to the other? [All things are interconnected.]
wow!! any links to some reading material about that?
Plenty of volts but not enough sustained current (amps)
When I heard 'free' running electrons I knew there was a boon to be had :))
YOU BETTER UNO DOS AND SLOW YOUR ROLL BEFORE YOU TRES CATORCE
Thank you for this video, it was very thorough and helpful to answer any questions for humans returning to the moon.
Great video!
Thank you Mr. McColgan, for your great work and precise research!
Regards,
Anthony
I once became electrocuted by an electric fence of 10000 V DC, but it was conciderably less painful than being electrocuted in my left arm by putting my fingers into a lamp exposing me for 230 V AC, which was very painful. So even though a voltage of thousands of volt sounds bad, it might be ignorable depending on amperage.
You were zapped. Electrocuted means "death by electricity"
It's ignorable because of the negligible charge. You get the full expected amperage for an instant, but it discharges so fast that the voltage immediately drops to near zero.
Using the water/electricity analogy, it's like getting hit by a high pressure jet of water that's only a nanometer long. The high pressure jet might be able to cut steel normally, but it's so brief it can't actually damage anything before it dissipates its energy.
You were shocked, to be electrocuted you need to die.
Great video. Now in August 2023, India's Chandrayaan-3 has soft landed successfully on Moon's south pole , becoming first country to land on south pole 🎉🎉. It would provide polar region data to NASA to support incoming Artemis missions to moon
China was there first
@@umbro12 no they where not, they landed on the far side.
@@unownyoutuber9049 on the dark side, and brought samples back,
without nasa , india wouldnt have been able to land there ;D
@@fluffypuffyboy586 Its an Indian mission not NASA mission. NASA is not involved in any way in Chandrayaan missions of India. Nasa itself hasnt landed on moon in last 50 years as they no longer have that capacity :D
50 years since we have been on the moon. Shocking how long it has taken to go back especially considering the minerals up there.
"have been"
Can't believe you guys still buy that nonsense... 😂🤣
@@chrismay2298
?
We haven’t been to the fucking moon
@@dixienormus6941
We have though?
Greetings from the lunar south pole! 🇮🇳
I am not sure if NASA had found water on the moon first however even if it did find it did not disclose the finding, so effectively it makes chandrayaan the first mission to find water on moon.
2:26 If my math is correct, 600 billion kg of water ice when transformed into liquid water amounts to a cube with sides of about 8434 meters. Water ice however is about 9% less dense than liquid water. so that would mean one huge ice cube with sides of about 8680 meters (I think, not sure)
Water @10
Napkin math: 600 billion kg = 8434m, 600 million kg = 843m,
600,000 kg = 84m, 600 kg = 8.4m, 600g = 84cm?
Looks like you got the decimal point wrong (at least if 1 billion means 1000 million).
Achtsekundenfurz Lol 😂 @10 to the negative 11 Torr 🌝
It's 843.4 meters (for water), not 8,434. A metric ton of water cube has a 1 m long (tall, wide) side.
600 bln kgs of ice is 600 mln tons,or 0.6 cubic kilometres
This is really interesting because if we set up Lunar colonies elsewhere, apart from the poles, solar powered instruments would have to contend with long periods of time without sunlight.
thats why you don't use solar lmao, you use heat power storage to run stirling engines. that way you can use the natural hot and cold cycles to run a heat engine since both have compressive and expansive effects.
@@AppleManiagaming True. I was suggesting Solar for the polar regions (where it might be easiest to to account for the day/night cycle).
For your suggestion, it's fortunate that the Moon's orbit is so predictable.
2:55 Imagine they recorded a max of 127 because they accidentally used a 7bit or 8b digital thermometer (a 7b unsigned integer has a maximum value of base2 1111111 = base10 127, same for a signed 8b). Also a nice coincidence that the timestamp is the 8bit max value. Both limits are Mersenne numbers, one of them prime (127)
you're a gift to humanity, thank you for this
@@creamwobbly probably not. I now edited my comment, because you made me realize it's more likely that it would be an 8bit signed integer
Yep, had to re-subscribe ... for some unknown reason I was unsubscribed... Love this channel's content, thank you!
What a wonderful explanation of several major problems concerning working on the moon. I loved this video.
It is Not a major problem.
Is there any footage from inside the lunar landers? It'd be quite fascinating to see people in low gravity minus the cumbersome spacesuits.
you have the entire internet at your fingertips, look it up idk
There wouldn't be any way to tell that it was low gravity. The LM cabin was TINY, with barely any room to move around in, let alone jump. In fact, there wasn't even enough room for both of them to lie down, one had to hang a hammock across the cabin and sleep above the one sleeping on the floor.
Ha!
@@Ewumm You know not everything is on the internet, right? If it hasn't been digitized and made public, it's not on the internet. And even if it has, doesn't mean it's easy to find.
@@KingdaTorojust seeing crumbs from a fork would be interesting enough!
"Away Missions."
I love it 😆
No red shirts were harmed in the making of that comment.
Thank you so much to share this. I never knew nor realised these electric hazards on tne Moon!
If we ever colonize the moon, we should use this.
aCTUALLY LESS HAZARD THAN WALKING ON A WOOL RUG OR CARPET.
The universe is electric. I highly recommend you look into the Thunderbolts Project here on UA-cam.
@@toutatis193 I highly recommend you learn some astronomy and physics.
@@jessepollard7132 Haha, your replies are SO enlightening. Look, I know enough astronomy and physics to know what I don't know so I prefer to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about - even if they're not mainstream. After all, that's what science is about, isn't it? Have a nice day, troll.
That's too interesting, I didn't know even a little about that dangers. Would do Mercury have the same dangers?
Love the channel. The knowledge is great but the positivity is greater still
Could the build up in charge be mitigated with the use of a network of grounding rods and cables to provide a path for the charge to be neutralised? Alternatively could this charge be stored to provide a source of power?
exactly what I was thinking - just use some grounding rods and chuck some cables over the crater wall. Edit: better yet tether in some super-capacitors to capture that electricity, it's free real estate.
Came down to the comments to say something similar. It means we can potentially harvest energy from our star in a manner different to what we have used before. The question is... How effective will it be?
That's what I had in mind 🤔
@Brent Smith Ha ha. Got it!
static charge can't easily be converted to usable power. IF it could it would be done on Earth.
Wouldn't it be more effective and logical to have kind of a "lightning rod" going from head to toes? So it would lead electricity thru it.
Or better yet, why not make use of the FREE energy and turn it into power to charge batteries? If batteries are full, then extra energy could be simply turned into heat or light, just have powerful heater or lights on the suit, so when batteries are full, rest of it is just spent on lights or heater.
NOT ENOUGH POWER AND NOT SUITABLE FOR BATTERIES.
I'd guess the ground isn't conductive enough to just stomp around and maintaining good contact.
You could walk around with a ground wire tether, but, assuming this static electricity can be used at all, it might be better to do that in fixed stations.
Even if you can lug around a lot of equipment with 1/6 of earth gravity :)
Chandrayan 3 landed on South Pole of the moon on 23rd August 2023 to confirm water presence.
Very interesting video. The Rimworld music was a nice touch.
Thank You. I've wondered but never seen or heard anything much about why we haven't gone to the moon's poles, where the alleged water is. As I've always said and still do: Learn to live on the moon first, before trying Mars. Seems simple common sense. Mars in my opinion, in the near future is a "one way mission". Thank You. This has been very educational and good narration.
You can't go to or land on the moon. Nonsense from every direction.
How have I missed something this big? How did I not know of the moons electrical nature? 😦
Because they invent new stuff on a daily basis.
@@wurzelbert84wucher5 😂 wtf kind of answer is that? 😂 sling your hook bro lmao
Think that's cool, check out Io's electric nature. It's effectively a giant dynamo using Jupiter's magnetic field.
@@jeffspaulding9834 Alright, thanks for the heads up 👍
Awesome channel with awesome content and great quality as always say 🌍💯
It seems to be a bit disingenuous to say how dangerous the electrical discharge can be. The voltage could be very high with little to no current. It would, like you said, be like being shocked after rubbing a carpet.
Ok then you test it out first.
. .
@@Nah_Bohdi ikr love all the wanna be scientists in the video comments, I'm sure space agencies have thought of the basic solutions they all throw around
True, voltage is not even a unit of charge, and nasa is still planning to land there and not designing their suits to deal with a “high chance of being electrocuted” by static.
tHAT IS THE PROBLEM EVERYBODY HERE IS IGNORING. THERE IS ALMOST NO CURRENT FLOW AVAILABLE.
@Grace Jackson Actually simple electron leakage will discharge it.
6:56 approximately “…red eyeness “ I’ve got a new term that I’ll be using after a bowl! Great video, keep ‘em coming.
As a big space fan since I was a child. I LOVE THIS
it actually seems like the best place to learn to thrive off earth considering there are atmospheres out there that would make things easier than on the moon
First thing I thought of when hearing about the amount of electric charge was How can we tap into this to power our equipment?
As to the dust. It has a charge, so a wire mesh in the spacesuit should allow us to just repel the dust with a weak electric charge on the surface of the suit.
The mesh should also conduct any buildup of static charge to the ground before any significant voltage can accumulate.
Someone with practical brain. Thanks
India did it yesterday..😅 So DOH!:)
"The Moon's polar regions are a shocking place for humans to be.". India sent a probe and rover, he is talking about landing astronauts.
@@KhalOisha78 Wear good Ray-Bans! Hehe.:)
@@AZ0986688humans and machines ain't the same thing
How does the estimated quantity of water on the moon, compare to existing bodies of water on earth (Lake Superior? Lake Baikal? or a percentage of an ocean?)
I really enjoyed this video about the🌘. Excellent research.
2:30 C'mon Alex... visualising water mass by comparison with cars? Seriously?
What about "600 billion kilograms of ice [provided billion means 10^9 in this case] are equivalent to 600 million cubic meters, or 240 million Olympic swimming pools, or one twelfth of Loch Ness (without Nessy)"? ;)
7:00 That's interesting. Usually, Teflon™ and other perfluorinated materials tend to a negative electrostatic charge themselves. So actually I'd expect that negatively charged particles are repelled and not attracted. Polyamides, e.g. Kevlar™, tend to a positive electrostatic charge, and might thus act attractive rather than repellent.
Maybe mixing those materials would help.
Americans be like
How about millions of metric tons, instead this many trillion of pound or pennies, hot dogs or empire state buildings
@@jacksmith7726 maybe yes, but it's also difficult to visualise 600 million metric tons of water.
Maybe a cube of water with ca. 850 meters length on each side would work.
blue whales 🐋🐳🐋 please!
@@ianstobie so, that would be 3 million blue whales, or 🐋🐋🐋 E+6 ^^
We have “high temperature” super-conducting tape that could be useful for draining the charge from a mass of solid water, provided the temperature were sufficiently low and was never exposed to solar radiation. I think there are some whose critical temperature is above LN (-196C). I don’t recall the surface temperatures that were mentioned (-230?) but it sounds as if a long tape that was below it’s Tc could be used as a tether, or unrolled / hurled /shot from a point of attachment just inside the rim of the crater, down into the center, to drain the charge, or create a path of equipotential for safe access. Just thinking “out loud”…
It always blows my mind that we went to the moon landed and there’s not holiday to celebrate this? Like wtf. I know I know companies would hate another holiday.
You're not supposed to celebrate any American achievement, apparently.
There are plenty of more important discoveries that dont have a holiday. Science isnt regarded particularly highly in the creation of holidays. I cant think of a single one off the top of my head
I wonder how many things scientists have to consider before attempting any missions to satellites and planets. For general public it's like just hop on a rocket and land there but after watching these videos I am learning how deep the scientists think in every angle, research and hardwork to make the missions successful.
Excellent video very nice production and presentation
Something i just realized. With no dense atmosphere and winds to carry dust, the moon could be a potentionally better place to use solar panels to generate electricity. Of course there is the matter of protecting the panels from solar winds and many objects falling at speed at the moon surface.
Solar wind is not a problem. Your run of the mill solar panels would do just fine against it. The falling object problem is unfixable though so best you can do is pray nothing hits it but the odds are low of it happening anyways.
As tres catorce suggests, the Moon's surface itself is something like a solar panel.
You could protect the solar panels by putting them under the ground....oh, wait......no,.... forget it.
so, how exactly would these solar panels be used?
Didn't realize how our Moon could be so hostile. Well, at least it may serve as a convenient laboratory.
Convenient?
@@renejean2523 not convenient at all - going into a room and turning on a van-de-Graff generator will get you 300,000 volts in a few seconds.
Harmless to nearly everyone without a pacemaker (and even then mostly harmless).
the video is mostly overhype.
The moon is a harsh mistress
I wonder if this phenomenon could be used as a power source?
If it can, is it more efficient than regular old solar panels? Either way, there must be some kind of shock prevention around buildings, so might as well harness it if you can.
@@MolecularMachine I.K.R?!?!? Tons of power, and we're too lazy to use it.. sounds like a space agency problem..) It's a big club and we're not in it..
Possibly a fair point about solar panels still being a better idea. But this might be a cheaper more primitive solution. I am guessing all you need is two sets of conductive sheet metal plates. One set for an anode and one set for a cathode. Easier to repair also.
I suspect that this may be possible, but nobody knows about the practicality of such a system since it can't realistically be tested here on Earth because the conditions don't exist. I would suggest that this may be among the early experiments on the Moon, and will require a period of development before it becomes practical. That said, lunar regolith is surprisingly similar to volcanic ash, and I experienced the ash cloud after Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980. There was _substantial_ static electrical discharge (lightning) which was possibly the most terrifying part of the ordeal.
no
Woah blown away
Here after Chandrayaan 3 🇮🇳
Can't wait for the next manned missions
this video is wired to me cause the information i am getting into is completely new to me and rather had very new insights in my point of view thanks for the video i liked it
I learned about "red eyeness"(6:53) today. Thank you Astrum.
I lol'd when I caught that!
At 5:05 , how come the negative charged electrons fall down into the craters rather then the positive ions which are said to be 1000x heavier then the electrons? Wouldn’t the moons gravity cause it to be the other way around?
im guessing their mass means they have more momentum from the solar wind, while electrons being lighter have such low momentum that they quickly fall
oh so the positive ions velocity would then help them resist the moons pull. That makes sense, thank you
Wait but wouldn't the two different speeds cause the solar wind as a whole to collapse into two different parts who are not connected to one another?
Wouldn't electrocution require fairly high currents, not just high static voltage?
yes
@Grace Jackson You are forgetting that the moon surface is conductive. The charge leaks off rather rapidly.
Excellent closing statement!
Hi! I led the WSU liquid nitrogen washing team. One of our papers was just published last week showing 95% dust removal in a terrestrial environment. One of our reports to NASA shows we had higher success in a vacuum environment with over 98% removal by mass. Lmk if you have any questions!
So what was the cause of death?
The astronaut received a mild electric shock.
And that caused her to die?
Well it made her arm jerk, which caused the rover to accelerate off the edge of the cliff...
"Shocking new discoveries made at the moon's polar regions." I'll see myself out ⚡️⚡️ ⚡️
Hehehehe... nice.
Couldn't the solar wind theoretically provide unlimited electricity for a colony under these conditions?
Yes, but at far lower powers than regular solar. No real advantages.
no
NOT USABLE.
I love the idea of using the moon's high voltage to somehow install and charge a battery or somehow harnessing the power from almost infinite solar winds. Obviously it would be difficult but it's fun to spitball ideas!
Static charges are relatively easy to deal with. just puting some metal on the suit would eliminate the charge buildup by leaking the electrons.
If these lunar crater interior surfaces build up such enormous amounts of electricity, is there a possibility of capturing that electricity to power the bases?
It may be similar to collecting energy from lightning. Enormous capacitors with current limiters and enormous range of current acceptance. Hard to do but possible.
High voltage but probably very low current so not enough power to be useful
NO.
I see Jesse Pollard does not think it will work but I doubt that he has done any research on Tesla's work around that. He made it work on Earth. It could have been proven outside the lab if Wardencliffe had been completed. Now, here we are. Who is to say that we will not find power already on the Moon? Some thought Tesla was an alien...
Just as well ISRO didn't bother watching this negatively charged video and got on with successfully landing on the moon's south pole.
Maybe machines are safe but not the humans
"Lunar exploration would be much less appealing if you were constantly getting electrically shocked."
Nah, you just gotta find some kinky astronauts.
If done right a movie about our return to the moon and crashing into the dark side of it could be amazing.
Very compelling copy! Bravo.
Some poorly written parts to this video about regolith. The Apollo lander had no airlock. This is why Moon regolith was in the lander cabin.
Future human lunar missions will have airlock compartments where outside contaminants will be contained.
* PS. regarding the solar wind/electricity problem. (See an article titled; "Hazards of Solar Wind On Moon" by the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute). From that article;
"The question of how to safety discharge static electricity in space is an old one, notes Goddard Space Flight Center scientist William Farrell,...
As they shuffle along, the astronauts will be like people rubbing their feet on a woolen rug in the winter. Farrell says they may have to wait 100 sec. to discharge the static electric forces they build up after a single step."
* NASA has instruments which can measure static electricity using a sensor that is sensitive to any voltage changes in the environment.
(See the "Voltage Sensors Monitor Harmful Static" article from NASA Spinoff)
With instruments that can measure static electricity, astronauts will not have an insurmountable problem, though moving to and within these craters will be very slow.
- The electronics in current robots however would be vulnerable to such high levels of static electricity.
There are some designs that would entirely keep contaminants out, but a simple airlock would not (though better than Apollo). That stuff will get everywhere.
@@agsystems8220; My basic point about lunar regolith in my original post was to mention that no mitigation information for this was provided in the video.
* The video correctly states that the problem of lunar regolith for astronauts has been known since the Apollo landings.
- What's missing are proposals which have been made (in terms of airlock designs) to mitigate the problem.
- Similar mitigation designs have been proposed for Martian habitats because of perchlorate in the Martian regolith.
* Your response;
@A G Systems wrote ; "a simple airlock would not..."
"...keep contaminants out...".
* I did not write; "simple airlock"
* I wrote; "human lunar missions will have airlock compartments where outside contaminants will be contained."
- I'll explain that sentence further.
Part of the design will be to keep the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) lunar space suits in a compartment separate from the inner living quarters compartment of the habitat. This separate suit compartment would be within an airlock.
- Reference; From NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) abstract;
Titled; “Lunar Habitat Airlock/Suitlock”
"... lunar airlocks are planned to be used much more often (every other day) in a dusty, gravity environment. Concepts for airlocks were analyzed by … NASA…”
“A Suitlock (SL) which shares a pressure bulkhead with the Habitat allowing rear-entry suits to remain on the dusty side while the crew enters/exits the Habitat.”
“Objectives… 5. Minimize the intrusion of lunar dust”
Chandrayaan 3 landed near Moon's south pole on August 23rd
I would like to see us send robots to the moon to build living spaces and factories. Would be great to use some of the moons materials to make these. We if we could build rockets on the moon we could eventually launch them into space at 1/32 the energy as from Earth.
sToo slow. robots need accurate and timely supervision and the Earth is about 1.6 light seconds away
@@jessepollard7132 Those Mars missions suggest we can figure things out.
You guys are lunatics. 😂
@@chrismay2298 I have PhDs in physics and molecular biology and am working in a lab overlooking a Saturn rocket. So my perspective is based upon what I can do.
A good video, however one shortcoming I found is that the animation doesn't explain why the electrons from the Sun should travel downward to hit the inner surface of the Moon crater in the first place. I'd like to chime in with my hypothesis and see if someone can come up with a better explanation:
Due to the photoelectric effect, the electromagnetic radiation from the Sun kicks electrons in the atoms on the Moon's surface into space, and since electrons are very light, they can easily surpass the escape velocity. What remains are positively charged ions on the sun-schorched side of the crater. Then, the electrons in the solar wind, which would under other circumstances travel in an (almost) straight line since they're too fast and too light to be affected by Moon's gravity, are actually significantly attracted by the positive charge and change their velocity vector towards the Moon's surface. They travel along a curve that might resemble an arc or a hyperbola (depends on the distribution on the positive charge on the outter slope) and they hit the Moon's ground farther away from the Sun. That however does not explain why the positive particles in the solar wind should follow suit along less curved trajectories - instead I would expect the protons to be repelled by the positively charged surface and leave the Moon's sphere of influence altogether. What do you think?
The idea of looking up and seeing city lights on the moon just blew my mind🤯
Because the studio isn't ready duh 🤷
Chandrayan 3 🇮🇳 landed on the Lunar south pole. India is the first one to land there. If we are looking at setting up a base there, India will have its stake.
Please don't use CARS as a comparatitive metric. It is far more vague than the original value of 600b Kg.
Seems like those charged areas may be a good place to put some sort of passive charging system. Kinda the reverse of an induction phone charger.
All those things Space Astronauts have to encounter is amazing. Everything everywhere seems dangerous to mankind from not being able to breath the air of a given planets, to being frozen, to being burned etc etc etc. We really need to save and protect this Home world we call earth. Theirs no where else that is safe for us. That's why we must be bold and continue to explore space, (the final frontier). I borrowed that last part from Capt Kirk of Star Trek.......
Yes, film sets are dangerous places indeed