The Lunar surface question

quasar2010

Rather than carrying on the arument about whether or not they landed on the moon, I thought I would raise the question of the Lunar surface in a seperate thread. This thread is just about the Lunar surface and what it should or shouldn't look like.
Here are my thoughts:-
From the picture below we see an Apollo astronaut stood on the surface of the moon. All looks pretty legitimate to me apart from the footprints and the depth of the lunar dust.
You see, what I can't get my head around is the depth of the lunar dust!
The Moon is pretty old, something in the region of 5 billion years old in fact. During this time an untold number of meteorites, comets and asteroids have struck the lunar surface and spilled millions of tons of debris onto the surface.
When you look at the pictures though, where ever the astronauts walk, the dust only seems to be a few inches deep before footprints are formed.
If footprints are formed then something solid has to be underneath the dust - the lunar rocky surface.
On Earth after one volcano erupts and we get pyroplastic dust formation on buildings, sometimes the dust is up to 10 feet deep. That is just one tiny event in the history of the planet. If we calculated all the dust from all the volcano's over the last 5 billion years it would be probably be hundreds of metres deep all over the planet. Some of the collisions the moon has been subject to are far more serious than a volcano on Earth, the craters are 10's of miles across and would result in massive releases of pyroplastic materials 1000's of degrees in temperature landing back on the surface just like on Earth.
Are we to assume that 5 billion years of lunar bombardment has resulted in 2 inch of dust?
I would have expected the dust to be maybe 100 to a 1000 feet deep because there is no water to compact it or wash it away, there is no wind to blow it away either because the surface of the moon is a vacuum directly connected to outer space.
Something isn't adding up here. Thoughts please.

squod

quasar2010 wrote: »

the craters are 10's of miles across and would result in massive releases of pyroplastic materials 1000's of degrees in temperature landing back on the surface just like on Earth.

You sure about this?

quasar2010

squod wrote: »

You sure about this?

Some of it will end up back in space but a lot of it will be pulled back to the lunar surface as dust due to gravity.

squod

Interesting, what kind of spread would you expect to see. A ten mile crater might send 'soil' over quite a distance? Tens of thousands of kilometres maybe?

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

Rather than carrying on the arument about whether or not they landed on the moon, I thought I would raise the question of the Lunar surface in a seperate thread. This thread is just about the Lunar surface and what it should or shouldn't look like.
Here are my thoughts:-
From the picture below we see an Apollo astronaut stood on the surface of the moon. All looks pretty legitimate to me apart from the footprints and the depth of the lunar dust.
You see, what I can't get my head around is the depth of the lunar dust!
The Moon is pretty old, something in the region of 5 billion years old in fact. During this time an untold number of meteorites, comets and asteroids have struck the lunar surface and spilled millions of tons of debris onto the surface.
When you look at the pictures though, where ever the astronauts walk, the dust only seems to be a few inches deep before footprints are formed.
If footprints are formed then something solid has to be underneath the dust - the lunar rocky surface.
On Earth after one volcano erupts and we get pyroplastic dust formation on buildings, sometimes the dust is up to 10 feet deep. That is just one tiny event in the history of the planet. If we calculated all the dust from all the volcano's over the last 5 billion years it would be probably be hundreds of metres deep all over the planet. Some of the collisions the moon has been subject to are far more serious than a volcano on Earth, the craters are 10's of miles across and would result in massive releases of pyroplastic materials 1000's of degrees in temperature landing back on the surface just like on Earth.
Are we to assume that 5 billion years of lunar bombardment has resulted in 2 inch of dust?
I would have expected the dust to be maybe 100 to a 1000 feet deep because there is no water to compact it or wash it away, there is no wind to blow it away either because the surface of the moon is a vacuum directly connected to outer space.
Something isn't adding up here. Thoughts please.

Very simple. Every time there is a impact most of the material is ejected form the moon and lost in space.
And for every new impact the dust that was on the ground is also blasted into space.
Volcanoes deposit the entirety of their debris onto the Earth, usually over the course of many days, not just a single moment like a meteor strike.
Comparing the two thing is plain ridiculous.

What exactly are you basing you assumption of "100 to a 1000 feet deep" on?

quasar2010

squod wrote: »

Interesting, what kind of spread would you expect to see. A ten mile crater might send 'soil' over quite a distance? Tens of thousands of kilometres maybe?

Hard to say but its not like here on Earth. Impact debris on Earth has been eroded, washed away and vegetated which masks pretty much where it ended up but on the moon I would expect to see most of it within a distance of the crater in huge amounts. Did they send probes to see how deep the dust was on the landing sites for the Lunar module? I wouldn't fancy landing the Eagle in 30 feet of lunar dust because that would be end of mission!

quasar2010

King Mob wrote: »

Very simple. Every time there is a impact most of the material is ejected form the moon and lost in space.
And for every new impact the dust that was on the ground is also blasted into space.
Volcanoes deposit the entirety of their debris onto the Earth, usually over the course of many days, not just a single moment like a meteor strike.
Comparing the two thing is plain ridiculous.

What exactly are you basing you assumption of "100 to a 1000 feet deep" on?

Just because the Moon has only one sixth of the gravity of earth, it doesn't mean that its a rubber ball and bounces everything back into space. Every impact on the moon has similarities to those on earth, both have crater walls and a pinacle in most cases in the centre. Mars is the exact same.
There just isn't enough energy after impact for the debris to escape gravity because most of the energy has been absorbed by the moon.

squod

quasar2010 wrote: »

Hard to say but its not like here on Earth. Impact debris on Earth has been eroded, washed away and vegetated which masks pretty much where it ended up but on the moon I would expect to see most of it within a distance of the crater in huge amounts. Did they send probes to see how deep the dust was on the landing sites for the Lunar module? I wouldn't fancy landing the Eagle in 30 feet of lunar dust because that would be end of mission!

So, would you imagine the effects of these craters and impacts might give a ''mixing bowl'' effect. Sweeping soil and rock here and there as each crater is formed?

tricky D

Escape due to low gravity
Compaction due to gravity
The light weight of the astronauts

But whatever the depth to rock, the main reason is bog standard soil mechanics (beach sand, mud or dust can be tens of metres deep, but footprints are only in the order of a few millimetres).

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

Just because the Moon has only one sixth of the gravity of earth, it doesn't mean that its a rubber ball and bounces everything back into space. Every impact on the moon has similarities to those on earth, both have crater walls and a pinacle in most cases in the centre. Mars is the exact same.

And the moon is subject to higher velocity impacts and more of them.
And the moon has no atmosphere to slow the dust particles down.

Now I'm not saying that none of the dust stays on the moon, just that most of it escapes.

quasar2010 wrote: »

There just isn't enough energy after impact for the debris to escape gravity because most of the energy has been absorbed by the moon.

Let's pretend this is a statement that actually hold any water at all, then how do you explain the lunar meteorites Nasa is supposedly using to fake the Apollo rocks.
Where did they come from?

And you've ignored my question: What exactly are you basing you assumption of "100 to a 1000 feet deep" on?

squod

Buzz Aldrin claimed he could stick his boot down several inches in the soil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkdOMdIYxlI

Worth a watch if you're interested in the topic (or just want to mindlessly criticize my arguments).

quasar2010

King Mob wrote: »

And the moon is subject to higher velocity impacts and more of them.
And the moon has no atmosphere to slow the dust particles down.

The moon is also a vacuum in which heat cannot rise and create any form of convection currents. Doesn't matter how fast objects hit, the same laws of physics still apply, the moon is not made of rubber and absorbs most of the impact, this is why we see craters. If all the debris was spewed into space we would not see any crater walls just large holes in the surface.

King Mob wrote: »

Now I'm not saying that none of the dust stays on the moon, just that most of it escapes.

On what evidence are you basing this assumption and can you give me a scientific breakdown of the laws which would allow it to do this using Newtonian mechanics?

King Mob wrote: »

Let's pretend this is a statement that actually hold any water at all, then how do you explain the lunar meteorites Nasa is supposedly using to fake the Apollo rocks.
Where did they come from?

Not interested in that statement, its besides the point.

King Mob wrote: »

And you've ignored my question: What exactly are you basing you assumption of "100 to a 1000 feet deep" on?

I'm basing this on the fact that there are deposits of dust on Earth from similar events that are 100's of feet deep under the ocean. The Moon should be no different, in fact it should be more exaggerated due to the fact it has a vacuum which will not allow clouds of ash to escape into the atmosphere and encircle the globe being deposited elsewhere. The debris will stay local and will be heavy otherwise there would be no crater walls like I said.

King Mob

squod wrote: »

Buzz Aldrin claimed he could stick his boot down several inches in the soil.

Vid snip

Worth a watch if you're interested in the topic (or just want to mindlessly criticize my arguments).

Like mindlessly pointing out the lack of a vacuum.

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

The moon is also a vacuum in which heat cannot rise and create any form of convection currents.

Yes... and your point?

quasar2010 wrote: »

Doesn't matter how fast objects hit, the same laws of physics still apply, the moon is not made of rubber and absorbs most of the impact, this is why we see craters.

Yea, it kind of does matter how fast objects hit, it's a law of physics.
Higher velocity means bigger kinetic energy which gets transferred to the debris.

quasar2010 wrote: »

If all the debris was spewed into space we would not see any crater walls just large holes in the surface.

Which is why I clearly and unambiguously stated that I wasn't saying all of the debris.

quasar2010 wrote: »

On what evidence are you basing this assumption and can you give me a scientific breakdown of the laws which would allow it to do this using Newtonian mechanics?

Funny how you ask me this yea don't seem to have any of your own.
It's very simple. When a meteor hits it sends debris into the air. The less massive the debris the faster it will travel. The faster it travels the closer it gets to escaping the Moon's gravity.
Dust is not very massive at all.
Your typical meteor will hit as speeds of 20 Km/s.
the escape velocity of the moon is only 2.83 Km/s.

quasar2010 wrote: »

Not interested in that statement, its besides the point.

Hang on. If meteor impacts cannot cause debris to escape the Moon, where do these things come from?

quasar2010 wrote: »

I'm basing this on the fact that there are deposits of dust on Earth from similar events that are 100's of feet deep under the ocean. The Moon should be no different, in fact it should be more exaggerated due to the fact it has a vacuum which will not allow clouds of ash to escape into the atmosphere and encircle the globe being deposited elsewhere. The debris will stay local and will be heavy otherwise there would be no crater walls like I said.

But you see the Moon, and meteor impacts are different to volcanoes on Earth.
Debris thrown into the air by a volcano would have less velocity, encounter air resistance and turbulence and would have to beat the Earth's greater gravity.
Also Volcanoes deposit their debris of days of erupting.

What you would need to actually base you theory on for it to have any weight would be the amount of debris send up as dust per impact, the percentage that returns to the moon and then how many impacts per year. Then multiply all that by the number of impacts over the 4.5 billion years.

bonkey

quasar2010 wrote: »

The Moon is pretty old, something in the region of 5 billion years old in fact. During this time an untold number of meteorites, comets and asteroids have struck the lunar surface and spilled millions of tons of debris onto the surface.

Yup. Meteorite and micrometeorite impact are generally accepted to be one of the major corrosive factors on the moon.

When you look at the pictures though, where ever the astronauts walk, the dust only seems to be a few inches deep before footprints are formed.
If footprints are formed then something solid has to be underneath the dust - the lunar rocky surface.

Yes, something solid has to be underneath the dust. It turns out that its...densely packed lunar soil.

Have a look at the work of Dr. Gold[/quote] as well.

Are we to assume that 5 billion years of lunar bombardment has resulted in 2 inch of dust?

Nope.

Phill Ewinn

There's probably a load of info on this from the LCROSS mission. Someone should post up a link before this thread decends into the usual shouting match.

Monty Burnz

squod wrote: »

Buzz Aldrin claimed he could stick his boot down several inches in the soil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkdOMdIYxlI

Worth a watch if you're interested in the topic (or just want to mindlessly criticize my arguments).

Having watched this video, I'm not convinced that an Aussie's bedsit recreates the gravity and other conditions found on the moon.

quasar2010

Funny how you ask me this yea don't seem to have any of your own.
It's very simple. When a meteor hits it sends debris into the air. The less massive the debris the faster it will travel. The faster it travels the closer it gets to escaping the Moon's gravity.
Dust is not very massive at all.
Your typical meteor will hit as speeds of 20 Km/s.
the escape velocity of the moon is only 2.83 Km/s.

The most compelling evidence to suggest what you are saying is incorrect is this:-
The Earth is in close proximity to the Moon, if what you say is true then massive lumps of the Moon will have been spewed into the Earths atmoshere and found in geological evidence. Moon dust and rocks will have been swallowed by Earths gravity leaving a huge geological history here.
We wouldn't need to go to the Moon for rocks there would be plenty here.
Take a look at the Moon through a telescope, there is no evidence of the violence you are suggesting. It is complete, its mass has been the same for more or less its entire duration. In other words, its mass has not reduced for a very long time. Such violence over a long period of time would reduce its mass significantly, change the ocean patterns on Earth and alter its orbit around the Earth too. In other words it would have been battered out of existance.
The Evidence however points to the fact that both the Earth and the Moon have actually increased in mass over the past 5 billion years. What you seem to be forgetting too King Mob is the fact that space dust for the last 5 billion years has been gently drifting across the Cosmos into the Earths and the Moons gravitational field and is still doing so to this day. 5 billion years worth of space dust does not equals 2 inch of dust on the moon. How did Nasa know how deep the dust was? Did they send a probe?
Did they guess? Would you take a risk guessing it was 2 inch deep.
I put it to you, if dust can be 2 inches deep then it can also be 50 feet deep and you would never know it by observing through a scope.

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

The most compelling evidence to suggest what you are saying is incorrect is this:-
The Earth is in close proximity to the Moon, if what you say is true then massive lumps of the Moon will have been spewed into the Earths atmoshere and found in geological evidence. Moon dust and rocks will have been swallowed by Earths gravity leaving a huge geological history here.
We wouldn't need to go to the Moon for rocks there would be plenty here.
Take a look at the Moon through a telescope, there is no evidence of the violence you are suggesting. It is complete, its mass has been the same for more or less its entire duration. In other words, its mass has not reduced for a very long time. Such violence over a long period of time would reduce its mass significantly, change the ocean patterns on Earth and alter its orbit around the Earth too. In other words it would have been battered out of existance.
The Evidence however points to the fact that both the Earth and the Moon have actually increased in mass over the past 5 billion years. What you seem to be forgetting too King Mob is the fact that space dust for the last 5 billion years has been gently drifting across the Cosmos into the Earths and the Moons gravitational field and is still doing so to this day. 5 billion years worth of space dust does not equals 2 inch on dust on the moon. How did Nasa know how deep the dust was? Did they send a probe?
Did they guess? Would you take a risk guessing it was 2 inch deep.
I put it to you, if dust can be 2 inches deep then it can also be 50 feet deep and you would never know it by observing through a scope.

You're just deliberately misrepresenting everything I'm saying at this stage (well everything you aren't ignoring that is.)

The dust that's thrown up would for the most part, escape. A portion of that would fall to the earth and but it would be so small it would be impossible to tell if it came from the Moon, unless you're willing to check every single grain of dust.

Further more the amount of the dust thrown off by the impacts, though it would be the majority, would still be only a teeny tiny fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the mass of the moon. Saying that what I'm suggest would lead to the moon being "battered out of existence" is a silly strawman argument.

Are you still honestly maintaining that no material can escape the Moon?

And assuming that NASA just guessed, why is that a problem? You seem to have reached your conclusion based on a guess.
You keep insisting that 2 inchs of dust is impossible, but from what your op said you have no reason other than an apriori assumption that NASA is lying and a misunderstanding of science.
If NASA guessed it was based on actual science and observation.

Monty Burnz

Quasar, there must be pretty good sources of info on what surface of the moon is like from official sources. That would take a lot of guesswork out of this, unless we start from the position that everything they tell us is a lie and we'd be better off making it all up ourselves.

I'd presume for example that the regolith is not uniformly deep all over the surface, but what the maxima and minima are I'd have no clue.

quasar2010

King Mob wrote: »

You're just deliberately misrepresenting everything I'm saying at this stage (well everything you aren't ignoring that is.)

The dust that's thrown up would for the most part, escape. A portion of that would fall to the earth and but it would be so small it would be impossible to tell if it came from the Moon, unless you're willing to check every single grain of dust.

Further more the amount of the dust thrown off by the impacts, though it would be the majority, would still be only a teeny tiny fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the mass of the moon. Saying that what I'm suggest would lead to the moon being "battered out of existence" is a silly strawman argument.

You keep insisting that 2 inchs of dust is impossible, but from what your op said you have no reason other than an apriori assumption that NASA is lying and a misunderstanding of science.

Are you still honestly maintaining that no material can escape the Moon?

The size of craters on the Moon are massive, miles across. The impact of such events would be enormous, thousands and thousands more powerfull than any Nuclear explosion we can create. If such an event took place and a huge amount of debris would be involved and if it escaped the Moons gravity and entered ours would leave geological evidence. Our geologists are very clever and can trace volcanic activity from billions of years ago. We can look at stratified layers and work out when the dinosaurs were wiped out and for what reason. Yet you say we can't find a small layer of Moon dust???
Debris will undoubtibly escape the Moon from a very large collision because such events on Earth have resulted in the same but the majority of debris will stay on the moon along with the dust, gradually increasing its mass over its 5 billion year life. You havn't answered my questions about NASA calculating how deep the dust would be for the first Lunar landing by the way. Don't avoid it next time please.

is a silly strawman argument.

You are becoming increasingly rude and aggitated, a sign of losing an argument when emphesis is taken away from facts and placed on redicule.
Don't go there, just stick to the science and the facts please.

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

The size of craters on the Moon are massive, miles across. The impact of such events would be enormous, thousands and thousands more powerfull than any Nuclear explosion we can create. If such an event took place and a huge amount of debris would be involved and if it escaped the Moons gravity and entered ours would leave geological evidence.

Eh... it has.
Lunar meteorites.

quasar2010 wrote: »

Our geologists are very clever and can trace volcanic activity from billions of years ago. We can look at stratified layers and work out when the dinosaurs were wiped out and for what reason. Yet you say we can't find a small layer of Moon dust???

You keep bringing up volcanoes on Earth. Why can't you seem to grasp the differences between them and stuff on the Moon?

quasar2010 wrote: »

Debris will undoubtibly escape the Moon from a very large collision because such events on Earth have resulted in the same but the majority of debris will stay on the moon along with the dust, gradually increasing its mass over its 5 billion year life.

So why if larger rocks can escape, why can't dust?

quasar2010 wrote: »

You havn't answered my questions about NASA calculating how deep the dust would be for the first Lunar landing by the way. Don't avoid it next time please.

Oh the hypocrisy...
I did answer it, you ignored the point.

quasar2010 wrote: »

You are becoming increasingly rude and aggitated, a sign of losing an argument when emphesis is taken away from facts and placed on redicule.
Don't go there, just stick to the science and the facts please.

That's got nothing to do with being agitated or losing the argument.
You are dishonestly misrepresenting my argument by exaggerating it and twisting what I'm saying to build a different silly argument which I am not making. This is called a strawman, and it's a dishonest tactic.

squod

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Having watched this video, I'm not convinced that an Aussie's bedsit recreates the gravity and other conditions found on the moon.

Totally agree. Gave my opinion of it (and mythbusters) over here........

squod wrote: »

This was also covered in a previous thread. Mythbusters video is misleading to say the least. You can purchase a NASA approved 'mock' moon sand on teh internet and have a go of it yourself. The chance of replicating a load of footprints like the ones seen on the Apollo pictures is highly unlikely.

Can't really trust what mythbusters are saying TBH. Jarrah White's conditions were far from ideal. All anyone can say for sure is that when we get there we'll find out for sure.

quasar2010

King Mob wrote: »

Eh... it has.
Lunar meteorites.


You keep bringing up volcanoes on Earth. Why can't you seem to grasp the differences between them and stuff on the Moon?


So why if larger rocks can escape, why can't dust?

Oh the hypocrisy...
I did answer it, you ignored the point.


That's got nothing to do with being agitated or losing the argument.
You are dishonestly misrepresenting my argument by exaggerating it and twisting what I'm saying to build a different silly argument which I am not making. This is called a strawman, and it's a dishonest tactic.

You are not reading what I am typing. I mentioned Volcanic activity and the geology behind it to explain how we can trace the history of major Earth events and how the history of the Moon would be included in those geological layers if you were indeed correct.
No such evidence of catostophic Moon events has ever been recorded in stratified layers of Earths geological patterns proving that you are indeed incorrect!
The Moon has remained intact from its beginnings and has increased in mass over the last 5 billion years. Therefore the amount of debris has increased and not decreased. 2 inch of Lunar dust does not explain the large amount of collision activity, neither does it explain 5 billion years of dust collected from the Cosmos. On Earth 2 inch of dust can accumulate in 2 months yet you are wanting me to believe that on the Moon, after 5 billion years its the same!!!!
How did NASA know how deep the dust was?
How did Armstrong manage to avoid an area of deep dust, surely the depth can't be 2 inch all over the Moon? All the other Lunar missions seem to experience the same depth of dust everywhere on the Moon.
Is this like saying the sand in the Sahara is the same depth all over the desert?
Armstrong went from test crashing the Lunar lander on Earth to putting her down beautifully on the moon, avoiding rocks, craters, deep sand and lord knows what else. Was he lucky???

namloc1980

If the lunar dust was so deep how come the Soviet Lunakhod rovers managed to drive around it perfectly well? Those rovers had a mass of over 800kg and Lunakhod 2 drove over 37km on the moon. As for the astronauts not being able to make imprints in the lunar surface, the Soviet Lunakhods were well able to leave very clear imprints in the surface:



You can see the clear edge created in the regolith by the rover's wheels as well as even the detail of the shape of the wheel? According to the video posted earlier the dust should all collapse in on itself....but not so in reality.

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

You are not reading what I am typing. I mentioned Volcanic activity and the geology behind it to explain how we can trace the history of major Earth events and how the history of the Moon would be included in those geological layers if you were indeed correct.
No such evidence of catostophic Moon events has ever been recorded in stratified layers of Earths geological patterns proving that you are indeed incorrect!

Another strawman.
I am not talking about catastrophic events.

quasar2010 wrote: »

The Moon has remained intact from its beginnings and has increased in mass over the last 5 billion years. Therefore the amount of debris has increased and not decreased. 2 inch of Lunar dust does not explain the large amount of collision activity, neither does it explain 5 billion years of dust collected from the Cosmos.

Unless of course the lost dust is only a very very very very very small fraction of the entire mass of the Moon.

quasar2010 wrote: »

On Earth 2 inch of dust can accumulate in 2 months yet you are wanting me to believe that on the Moon, after 5 billion years its the same!!!!

Where exactly are you getting this figure? I can't engage in an honest discussion if you're just going to make facts up.

quasar2010 wrote: »

How did NASA know how deep the dust was?
How did Armstrong manage to avoid an area of deep dust, surely the depth can't be 2 inch all over the Moon? All the other Lunar missions seem to experience the same depth of dust everywhere on the Moon.

Again you've avoided the point and my question.

quasar2010 wrote: »

Is this like saying the sand in the Sahara is the same depth all over the desert?

And as we all know we can't walk on the sand in the sahara for fear of dropping straight through sand dunes.

quasar2010 wrote: »

Armstrong went from test crashing the Lunar lander on Earth to putting her down beautifully on the moon, avoiding rocks, craters, deep sand and lord knows what else. Was he lucky???

And here we have another long debunked CT factoid. But it's not the topic.

quasar2010

King Mob wrote: »

Another strawman.
I am not talking about catastrophic events.


Unless of course the lost dust is only a very very very very very small fraction of the entire mass of the Moon.

Where exactly are you getting this figure? I can't engage in an honest discussion if you're just going to make facts up.


Again you've avoided the point and my question.

And as we all know we can't walk on the sand in the sahara for fear of dropping straight through sand dunes.


And here we have another long debunked CT factoid. But it's not the topic.

Look in the desert of Arizona near the impact craters, on impact some of the debris is spewed back into space but most of it actually dispersed sideways forming the crater wall or Coldera.
Watch a car crash, or a car hitting a wall at high speed, the debris doesn't go back from where it came, the energy is absorbed by the wall mostly, but a lot goes sideways. Watch an object hit the Earth at high speed such as a plane, it embeds itself into the ground and a shock wave disperses the energy. Imagine a tennis ball size object hitting the Moon, it will embed itself into the surface, the energy is dispersed in the form of heat, kinetic energy and the shockwave but no debris from such an object will go back into space. It gets smashed into dust on impact. As the objects get bigger, more debris will get blown off the surface but it will fall back down later when its gets trapped in Moon orbit.
Billions of tennis ball sized objects hit the moon and get turned to dust, billions of football sized objects do exactly the same and billions of dust sized particles just drop without notice. Obviously because of what history tells us, more stays on the Moon than comes off it because its mass has increased significantly. There has to be areas on the Moon where the debris is uneven just like on Earth, its impossible for all the collision activity to be spread out perfectly evenly yet we've had all these missions to the Moon and they just happened to have dropped on the same thickness of dust!!!
2 inches, everywhere, the Lunar landers all landed on the same material, the same consistancy, the same depth?????????
Imagine if the Moon men decided to come to Earth in 1969 with the same technology, 'I know, we'll aim for that blue stuff, is seems flatish'
glug glug.
How did NASA know it was safe to land anywhere?

namloc1980

quasar2010 wrote: »

There has to be areas on the Moon where the debris is uneven just like on Earth, its impossible for all the collision activity to be spread out perfectly evenly yet we've had all these missions to the Moon and they just happened to have dropped on the same thickness of dust!!!
2 inches, everywhere, the Lunar landers all landed on the same material, the same consistancy, the same depth?????????
Imagine if the Moon men decided to come to Earth in 1969 with the same technology, 'I know, we'll aim for that blue stuff, is seems flatish'
glug glug.
How did NASA know it was safe to land anywhere?

Can you explain to us how the Russians managed to soft land 9 spacecraft on the Moon including 2 rovers and 3 sample return craft and none of them sunk into this regolith? Were they just lucky?


Luna 21 on the surface taken from Lunakhod 2

Or is it possible that the Moon is not covered in massively deep dust that a craft would sink into??

King Mob

quasar2010 wrote: »

Look in the desert of Arizona near the impact craters, on impact some of the debris is spewed back into space but most of it actually dispersed sideways forming the crater wall or Coldera.
Watch a car crash, or a car hitting a wall at high speed, the debris doesn't go back from where it came, the energy is absorbed by the wall mostly, but a lot goes sideways. Watch an object hit the Earth at high speed such as a plane, it embeds itself into the ground and a shock wave disperses the energy. Imagine a tennis ball size object hitting the Moon, it will embed itself into the surface, the energy is dispersed in the form of heat, kinetic energy and the shockwave but no debris from such an object will go back into space. It gets smashed into dust on impact. As the objects get bigger, more debris will get blown off the surface but it will fall back down later when its gets trapped in Moon orbit.
Billions of tennis ball sized objects hit the moon and get turned to dust, billions of football sized objects do exactly the same and billions of dust sized particles just drop without notice.

Here are a few simulated impacts. Notice how none of the stuff you just made up is observed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzIw0c_MjTc

Most of it seems to go up-ish.

But you've moved the goalposted so much now I don't think you've any idea what you are even arguing, let alone what I am.

quasar2010 wrote: »

Obviously because of what history tells us, more stays on the Moon than comes off it because its mass has increased significantly.

You keep claiming this, but you've offered nothing to support it.
And speaking of, any chance you'll support you rother claim that earth gathers 2 inches of dust per month?

quasar2010 wrote: »

There has to be areas on the Moon where the debris is uneven just like on Earth, its impossible for all the collision activity to be spread out perfectly evenly yet we've had all these missions to the Moon and they just happened to have dropped on the same thickness of dust!!!

Another strawman.

quasar2010 wrote: »

2 inches, everywhere, the Lunar landers all landed on the same material, the same consistancy, the same depth?????????

Again, strawman. no one is claiming that.

quasar2010 wrote: »

How did NASA know it was safe to land anywhere?

Already addressed this you're still ignoring it.

quasar2010

Can you explain to us how the Russians managed to soft land 9 spacecraft on the Moon including 2 rovers and 3 sample return craft and none of them sunk into this regolith? Were they just lucky?

Did they? Well we have some pretty expensive telescopes out there that can watch comets striking Jupiter pretty well but I havn't seen any close up pictures of the space junk out there on the moon yet.
Why don't we send the Space Shuttle with an high res camera, you know the type they spy on each other with which can see a car registration plate from orbit?
Oh i just remembered, the space shuttle can't go to the Moon can it. Hasn't got the technology.
Chuckle.

Divorce Referendum

quasar2010 wrote: »

Did they? Well we have some pretty expensive telescopes out there that can watch comets striking Jupiter pretty well but I havn't seen any close up pictures of the space junk out there on the moon yet.
Why don't we send the Space Shuttle with an high res camera, you know the type they spy on each other with which can see a car registration plate from orbit?
Oh i just remembered, the space shuttle can't go to the Moon can it. Hasn't got the technology.
Chuckle.

It wasnt designed to go to the moon because that wasnt its function. A car isnt designed to drive on water either. Chuckle