The Cohesiveness of Lunar Dust
Thermal Degradation Samples experiment, with the "Magic Numbers" consisting of dust on the Moon. This animated .Gif file shows the cohesive nature of lunar dust.
Alan Shepard picked up some dust, splashed it on two aluminium plates each of which had Identification numbers stamped, indented into each plate, and each of which had 12 identical stamp-sized samples of different materials such as white paint, teflon, etc to test how much dust stuck to it.
Alan took 7 photos in all, one of them after he had splashed dust on the second plate, then bumped it. Lunar dust had been accumulated in the indented numbers during splashing, and had become molded into the indented numbers.
After the bump, the indented "Magic Numbers" were dislocated, jumping about 3 mm with varying results.
Gift for STEM Teachers and students
Brian suggests that teachers and students of STEM, particularly of "M", but all, might market but must enjoy the reality that QUOTE “The only objects ever built of pure Moon dust, each particle size some nanometres, and built by serendipity on the Moon by an astronaut, are numbers, plain old boken "7" but delightfully a "5".. So Brian calls these Magic Numbers.". END QUOTE
This discovery was reported by Tommy Gold in NASA Apollo 14 Preliminary Science Report in 1971, but then forgotten.
It was unknown and unreferenced for 40 years until O'Brien announced it with a photo-shopped image to make it clear at his second 21st century lunar science conference at Boulder in December 2010. He then published it in his review (see link to O'Brien PSS 2011 Review).
Cohesive forces revealed by this discovery are suggested by O'Brien's sunrise model to be essential in explaining movements of dust on the Moon, including why the surface is naturally smooth even after large crater impacts (see link O'Brien & Hollick Sunrise,PSS 2015).
These cohesive forces went unreferenced in extensive hypothetical models and experiments based on notions of fine dust levitated by large electric fields on the Moon (seelink O'Brien, Paradigm etc 2018).
Jim Gaier completed the TDS experiment in 2012, and gives more details. (See Gaier Icarus see link http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2012.07.002 ).
Why does the sun Shine?
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Yo ho! it's hot!
The sun is not a place where we could live.
But here on Earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives!
We need its light, we need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun, without a doubt,
There'd be no you and me!
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot...
It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: Iron, Copper, Aluminum, and many others.
The sun is large...
If the sun were hollow, a million Earth's could fit inside!
And yet, the sun is only a middle size star.
The sun is far away...
About 93,000,000 miles away; that's why it looks so small!
And even when it's out of sight
The sun shines night and day
The sun gives heat, the sun gives light,
The sunlight that we seek.
The sunlight comes from our own sun's
Atomic energy!
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Helium.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas,
A gigantic nuclear furnace.
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees!
