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I have read dust levitates on the moon's surface extending to 100 miles in the sky (horizon) creating an exosphere. Dust levitates because the surface of the moon and dust particles have become positively charged due to electron stripping of the regolith. It would seem these charged ion particles would affect equipment as well as being dispersed throughout plain sight. When viewing Apollo footage the science and properties of the regolith don't match up.

Cheers.

Scott Brown
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    Where have you read this? Links please. And BTW, if you're trying to demonstrate Apollo didn't happen, give up now. Your question will be quickly closed. – Organic Marble Mar 11 '19 at 02:20
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    The LEAM experiment may have been affected by that charged dust, and the astronauts did see some horizon atmospheric effects (some on the surface but mostly from orbit). – amI Mar 11 '19 at 02:39
  • Read tons of pdf research files detailing the properties of the regolith. I am open to whatever anyone says. I believe it was a military CIA op for propaganda and nationalism. I welcome being wrong or learning more.

    here is a link for the regolith.
    https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1706/1706.09664.pdf

    another link: Take it easy

    Laterz

    https://io9.gizmodo.com/right-now-on-the-moon-dust-is-quietly-levitating-1598959772

     – Scott Brown Mar 11 '19 at 03:05
  • "It would seem these charged ion particles would … [be] dispersed throughout plain sight." All right, you're going to have to put a lot more detail into that. It would seem to whom? And why? Because from what I know of the Moon's exosphere, "thin" doesn't even begin to describe it, and without atmospheric optical effects I don't know why you'd expect the dust to be especially visible. (Maybe there is a plausible reason, one that's ultimately wrong, or irrelevant, like the lack of stars in Apollo shots — which is thanks to exposure time.) – Nathan Tuggy Mar 11 '19 at 03:05
  • Dust is visible. It is visible when the moon buggy kicks it up. That is insanely basic. There is an immense amount of dust on the moon due the bombardment of meteorites over billions of years. The meteorites and dust melt to due to solar flares and immense radiation over time. Easily googling you can see the regolith is 5m to 15m deep throughout the moon.

    Look forward to an exchange of idea and insight into's people's reality.

    Cheers.

     – Scott Brown Mar 11 '19 at 03:13
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    @ScottBrown Obviously some sizes of dust are visible. But not all sizes will levitate. So, more precisely, why would you expect a thin concentration of <100 nm dust particles to be substantially visible in Apollo shots? – Nathan Tuggy Mar 11 '19 at 03:24
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    If your analysis shows that something is off about the Apollo footage, your rational conclusion should be that something is wrong with your analysis, since its results are counterfactual. – Organic Marble Mar 11 '19 at 03:31
  • https://www.space.com/35240-moon-dust-levitates-nasa-study.html We expect dust particles to mobilize and transport electrostatically over the entire lunar surface, as well as the surface of any other airless planetary body. Per Xu Wang

    https://phys.org/news/2016-12-lunar-surfaceelectrostatic-reshapes-surfaces-airless.html

    This can cause dust particles to move and lift off the surface, or "levitate." And not just single-sized dust particles—large aggregates can be lofted as well.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-12-lunar-surfaceelectrostatic-reshapes-surfaces-airless.html#jCp

     – Scott Brown Mar 11 '19 at 03:44
  • Take it one step at a time. Is Lunar Horizon Glow still a thing? Has the “dust settled” on the topic? – uhoh Mar 11 '19 at 05:47

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This study explores the mechanisms behind dust levitation. Itputs the levitation altitude at 10 cm. The study also shows why the Surveyor landers recorded a glow that can be attributed to levitating dust, but Apollo crews didn't see this phenomenon: the effect is strongest near the terminator (day/night border).

This model suggests the dust is really leaping or swarming overtop a large number of shaded regions that would exist along the lunar dusk/dawn line, called the lunar terminator.

All Apollo missions landed during the local morning, far away from the terminator.

The Apollo crew did see the phenomenon from orbit (where they would pass the terminator twice per orbit).

Here's a photo taken by the Clementine spacecraft:

enter image description here

More factors in why this mechanism was not reported by the lander crews:

  1. the amount of dust transported this way is tiny. It takes 1000 years to build a layer of dust 1 mm thick.
  2. the particles involved are tiny ($\mu$m scale), so you can't see the individual dust particles. You just see the accumulated effect when you look horizontally through a large area with levitating dust (as in the Clementine photo above).

You can't compare this to the dust kicked up by the astronaut's feet and the rovers: that was a much larger quantity (capable of building a 1 mm layer in seconds rather than 1000 years) and it included much larger particles that are individually visible to the naked eye.

Hobbes
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