Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Weather By The Moon
to run lunar-based factories.
The Moon has a crust, about 60-150 km thick. The
interior composition of a moon can be guessed from density
measurements, and also determined more exactly from
spacecraft navigation data when a spacecraft passes by or
goes into orbit around a planet or moon. The density of
iron is about 5 g/cm3. The density of silicate rock is about
3 g/cm3. The density of the Earth’s Moon is about 3.3 .
This density is close to that of silicate rock, suggesting
that the Moon has a large mantle made mostly of rock.
Has the Moon an atmosphere? In decades past it
was accepted that moons such as the Earth’s moon or the
moons of Jupiter were airless bodies with no atmosphere
whatsoever. Now, however, measurements have shown that
most of these moons, including our own, are surrounded
by a thin atmospheric region of molecules.
The atmosphere may come from the release of gases
such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,
and radon, which originate deep within the Moon’s interior.
Another source are molecules which are loosened
from the surface by bombardment of the surface by other
molecules from space. These molecules may migrate
across the surface of the Moon, to colder regions where
they recondense into the ground, or they may fly off into
space. This mechanism is a source of water and helium.
Was there ever lunar water and if so does some still lie
under the Moon’s poles?
For once it was believed that the Moon contained
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