NASA Solves Mystery of Lunar Swirls

With NASA planning to put astronauts back on the Moon, scientists have explored how Sun’s damaging radiation left scars on the lunar surface. A team from the University of California-Berkeley studied data from NASA’s ARTEMIS mission along with simulations of the Moon’s magnetic environment.

Role of the Solar Wind and Moon’s Magnetic Fields

• Moon Gets a Distinctive Pattern of Darker and Lighter swirls: ARTEMIS - short for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun - suggests how the solar wind and the Moon’s crustal magnetic fields work together to give the Moon a distinctive pattern of darker ....