Solar Wind Poses Hazards On Moon
By Michael Mecham
San Francisco
When NASA discovered water frozen in the dark bottom of a south pole lunar crater last year, it renewed visions of astronauts one day supporting habitats with resources mined from the Moon’s surface. But a computer study of the strange effects the solar wind creates as it blows unimpeded across the Moon raises another vision—one of hundreds of volts of static electricity lurking in potentially resource-rich craters just waiting to zap an astronaut ...