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Disintegration of Apollo lunar soil

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 657–658 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor —

Most scientific and geotechnical uses of NASA's lunar soil collection presume that the samples remain representative of soils found in situ on the Moon. Although samples maintained in curatorial facilities may be sufficiently pristine for many purposes, we show that NASA lunar soil samples held in laboratories have undergone significant changes in particle size distribution. Here we present a systematic comparison of particle size statistics for a set of 20 lunar soil samples that have been stored in laboratory ambient conditions. We find that the original median diameters of these soils of 77.9 μm on average, as measured 40 years ago1, is more than twice the present average of 33.3 μm. We conclude that, despite the careful practices standard to astromaterial preservation, stored lunar soil grains have degenerated into smaller particles over the 30 to 40 years since the samples were allocated. Based on previous observations of changes to lunar soils exposed to water vapour, we propose that the change in grain size is due to prolonged interaction with water vapour diffusing through the samples' storage containers.

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Figure 1: Break-down of lunar soil particles over 40 years of storage.

References

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the research fund of Hanyang University Korea (HY- 2013-N) via the International Space Exploration Research Institute. The measurements were conducted under the auspices of NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Sciences (ARES) Directorate. Samples for this study were provided by NASA's Johnson Space Center and L.A. Taylor of U.T. Knoxville. R. Fruland provided previously unpublished sieve data for 10084,853. M. Sandel provided input on statistical significance of the data.

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Author notes

  1. D. S. McKay: Deceased

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Space Exploration Research Institute, Hanyang University, (2nd Engineering Building, 1271, Sa 3-dong, Sangrok-gu, Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, 426-791, Korea

    B. L. Cooper, B. C. Chang & T. S. Lee

  2. Geology Department, Grand Valley State University, 49401, Michigan, USA

    K. Thaisen

  3. NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, 77058, USA

    D. S. McKay

Authors
  1. B. L. Cooper
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  2. K. Thaisen
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  3. B. C. Chang
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  4. T. S. Lee
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  5. D. S. McKay
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Correspondence to B. L. Cooper.

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Cooper, B., Thaisen, K., Chang, B. et al. Disintegration of Apollo lunar soil. Nature Geosci 8, 657–658 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2527

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