Comments on: Uranium found on the Moon

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:51:54 +0000

You can see a person in the background that doesn’t have a space suit on so the picture is fake.

By: John

John — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 06:27:35 +0000

Gamma rays detected after the crash? Sound like they detected the power supply. Those things have plutonium in them

By: Jonny

Jonny — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:31:53 +0000

@Geophysicist, Granite is a phaneritic rock characterized by slow cooling right? Since the moon has no atmosphere and is directly exposed to space, this would act like an insulator given there are no particles to radiate heat into. Could granite and other phaneritic rocks then easily form on the surface? Maybe I’m missing a chicken or an egg here.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:43:14 +0000

No surprise; considering John Lear says we and current inhabitants of the moon are currently mining there under the cloaked veil of secrecy.

By: The Energy Net » Top 100 Energy Stories (June 29th - July 6th)

The Energy Net » Top 100 Energy Stories (June 29th - July 6th) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:23:29 +0000

[...] Uranium found on the Moon | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine Scientists using data from the recently-Moon-smacked Kaguya spacecraft have found evidence of radioactive elements on the lunar surface, including, for the first time, uranium! [...]

By: ZERO

ZERO — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:11:08 +0000

W00T!

China plans to land a man on the Moon by 2017!

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:14:08 +0000

For the record, I wrote the death ray poem quoted above by Jim. See:

http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/mad.html

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:24:03 +0000

Uranium is not more abundant than tin.

By: Michael Jackson photos/Morning Benders Demos/Quantum processors « steve cross loves music and science

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:59:31 +0000

[...] It’s been a while since we really learned anything cool/crazy about the moon, but now that interest in our only natural satellite has been renewed due to NASA’s plan to put a base there, we’re starting again to uncover interesting things. One such discovery is that there is Uranium there. And it’s even on the surface. Scientists made the discovery after seeing the tell-tale signature of gamma radiation in the data from the recently-crashed Japanese Kaguya Probe. (Via Bad Astronomy) [...]

By: Saider72

Saider72 — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:42:57 +0000

Mang,

Since Mars is about twice the diameter of the Moon that leaves about 7/8ths of the volume unaccounted for.

I also have noticed that they always indicate the size of the impactor, but nobody mentions how big the Earth was at that time. You assume that the Earth at that time was the same size as it is presently and that all the mass of the impactor ended up in the moon. My guess is that the models they used had a smaller (relative to the present mass) Earth getting hit by a Mars sized object. 7/8ths of the stuff aggregated back into the present Earth body, and the remainder formed the moon.

Just a thought.

By: Gavin Mendeck

Gavin Mendeck — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:55:32 +0000

I had to go check to be sure, but looks like the 1990s Lunar Prospector found evidence of uranium. Still, it’s great to have more data.

“Elemental abundance values for O, Si, Ti, Al, Fe, Mg, Ca, U, and K were derived from LP gamma ray spectrometer [Feldman et al., 1999] observations acquired during the high-altitude portion of the LP mission. For the elements O, Si, Ti, Al, Fe, Mg, and Ca, the data are given in units of elemental weight percent. For the elements U and K, the data are given in units of ppm.”

http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/lunarp/reduced_special.html

By: JoeSmithCA

JoeSmithCA — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:12:22 +0000

Too bad it is still so bleeping expensive to put things on the moon. I’m impatient, I want to put robotic construction vehicles up on the moon (even tiny ones) digging, mining and building a base.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:10:04 +0000

love your article but i’d like to point out what i believe is a misleading phrasing that you used. The gamma rays emitted that are picked up my radiation detection equipment (usually in space the high purity germanium detectors for surveying, but i have no proof that’s what was used here) are not the direct product of the Uranium itself ( the alpha can only be detected with low resolution at a few centimeters) The progeny emit a specific spectrum of higher energy gammas that can be traced to being uranium. A spectrum of gamma detection can be marked a signature for a specific radioactive elements. Two gammas? my guess is that the signature of Lead and Bismuth from the radium decay (a product of uranium decay, and the source of Radon in your home) would be sufficent evidence for the presence of naturally occuring uranium. Of course these products are the result of very long lived radioactive decays. The peak for finding uranium this way would be somewhere (i’m honestly not sure the exact number) in the range of a million years. Which would be just fine for finding it on the moon

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:04:07 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq2kqNTHejM

By: J Earley

J Earley — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:42:18 +0000

I think that Geophysicist is on the right track here. Many ore deposits on Earth are the result of water, volcanic activity or even life (iron ore beds or limestone, for instance) While there are many areas of former volcanic activity on the Moon, we are not very likely to find concentrated ore deposits that require water to form, by minerals precipitating out of hot water as it cools. I believe that any water on the moon can be accounted for by cometary impacts
As to the Mars sized impactor, I showed my students the results of a numeric simulation of the impact. Most of the material in the impactor gets incorporated into the forming Earth. Only a small part of it has enough angular momentum to make orbit. It was NOT an elastic collision!

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:41:29 +0000

My moon-based Death Ray
Panics the people of Earth
Mock my theories now!

By: Joe Meils

Joe Meils — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:54:41 +0000

Going back to post #10, about “Destination Moon”… as I recall, Joe (the comic relief radio/radar operator, gets the last line in when one of the scientists announces he may have found a deposit of uranium on the Moon…

“Well, ain’t that dandy! Now we can blow up the moon, too!”

By: firemancarl

firemancarl — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:34:56 +0000

One of the key aspects of the Moon is that it’s not as dense as the Earth — in fact, it’s just a bit more than half the Earth’s density

You mean until a chunk of a brown dwarf hits then impregnates the moon with super-duper-uber strong magnatisim! Duh!!!

Wot? You didn’t watch ‘Impact’ the other night???

By: Greg in Austin

Greg in Austin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:11:53 +0000

I’m not sure, but something about that photo looks fake…

By: Mang

Mang — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:53:32 +0000

37. @Gary – no doubt arriving back on our doorstep in 2012.

By: Stuart van Onselen

Stuart van Onselen — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:22:01 +0000

Useful stuff, that regolith. But wouldn’t they need to take care that the stuff they build out of it is properly sealed, lest bits of it flake off? I remember reading somewhere that lunar dust is a right royal pain-in-the-you-know-where, getting into everything, abrading moving parts, and not being too nice on the lungs, either. Maybe even a bit like asbestos?

By: Sir Eccles

Sir Eccles — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:33:31 +0000

Let’s have a swine flu party?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8125191.stm

By: Project Savior

Project Savior — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:27:25 +0000

“For a sustained presence, they are going to need bulk oxygen, water, cement, aluminum, stuff like that before they need berkelium or germanium.”

Just to nit-pick “Cement” can’t exist on the moon. Regular Portland Cement is derived from limestone. Limestone is made up of the skeletons of organisms like coral. These organisms need large oceans to grow in.

So no Cement on the Moon, Mercury, or smaller asteroids.

The regolith does have an interesting property that it hasn’t been smoothed down by air and water erosion so likes to stick together like gypsum and could be used in its raw form as drywall (it would just need to be compressed into the right shape) or if put in a microwave after being compressed the rough edges bond together making a hardened material that could be used in place of Concrete.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:18:27 +0000

36. Mang:

It’s a good possibility that the impactor experienced sufficient deceleration to cause it to drop into the sun, so there would be no remnants for us to discover,,,on the other hand,,,maybe it’s just in a 4.5 billion year orbit and getting ready to clobber us again.

Hey Phil,,, Death from the Mars Impactor. A new book for Ya,,,(a thank you note in the intro will do fine, thanks,,,)

Gary 7

By: Mang

Mang — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:03:09 +0000

Just thinking about a Mars sized object hitting Earth resulting in the Moon. Since Mars is about twice the diameter of the Moon that leaves about 7/8ths of the volume unaccounted for.

Now I wouldn’t expect it all to be present, but only 1/8th. The models they used must have accounted for it all somewhere. That seems like a lot to chuck into deep space.