Electronic "shower" and "vacuum cleaner". Scientists have figured out how to deal with dust on the moon

"It's really annoying," said Xu Wang, a researcher at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics.

(LASP) at CU Boulder. “Moon dust sticks to all surfaces—spacesuits, solar panels, helmets—and can damage equipment.”

Therefore, he and his colleagues developed a possiblethe solution is one that uses an electron beam, a device that releases a concentrated (and safe) stream of negatively charged particles of low energy. In a new study, the team aimed such a tool at a range of dirty surfaces inside the vacuum chamber. And they found that the dust just flew away.

Researchers still have a long way to gobefore real astronauts can use this technology for everyday cleaning. But according to the study's lead author, Benjamin Farr, early results from the study suggest that electron-beam dust collectors may become an integral part of lunar bases in the not too distant future.

Some of the astronautics pioneers complained aboutmoon dust, which often resists cleaning attempts. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, who was on the moon with Apollo 17 in 1972, was allergic to the material and said it smelled like "waste gunpowder."

Wang explained that the problem with moon dust isthat it is not like the one that accumulates on the bookshelves on Earth. Moon dust is constantly flooded with solar radiation, which gives the material an electrical charge. This charge, in turn, makes the dust even more sticky.

“Moon dust is very uneven and abrasive, like shards of glass,” Wang said.

Then the question arose before his group: how to separate this sticky substance from nature?

Image of a lunar «dust simulator» under a microscope, simulating lunar dust. Credit: IMPACT Lab.

Electron beams have become a promising solutionfor scientists. According to a theory developed from recent scientific studies of how dust naturally rises to the surface of the moon, such a device could turn the electrical charges on the dust particles into a weapon against them. If you hit a layer of dust with a stream of electrons, Wang said, that dusty surface will collect additional negative charges. Insert enough charges into the gaps between the particles and they can start repelling each other - just like magnets do when the wrong ends are squeezed together.

“The charges get so big that they bounce off each other and then dust explodes from the surface,” Wang said.

To test this idea, he and his colleagues loaded a vacuum chamber with various materials coated with a NASA-produced "moon simulator" resembling lunar dust.

And, indeed, after pointing the electronicthe beam crumbled into these particles, usually in just a few minutes. This trick worked on a wide variety of surfaces, including spacesuit fabric and glass. According to scientists, this new technology is aimed at cleaning the smallest dust particles that are difficult to remove with brushes. The method was able to clean dusty surfaces by an average of 75-85%.

Vacuum chamber at the CU Boulder campus. Credit: IMPACT Laboratory.

“It worked pretty well, but not good enough for us to finish,” Farr said.

Researchers are currently experimenting with new ways to increase the cleaning power of their electron beam.

But study co-author Mihai Horanyi, professorLASP and the CU Boulder Department of Physics, said the technology has real potential. NASA has experimented with other strategies for removing lunar dust, such as embedding a network of electrodes into spacesuits. However, an electron beam can be much cheaper and easier to deploy.

Horanyi imagines that one day the lunar astronautscan simply leave their suits hanging in a dedicated room or even outside their habitat and clean them up after a long day. The electrons will do the rest.

“To remove fine dust, you can simply enter the shower with an electron beam,” he concluded.

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