Sun Planets and Moons ID: 13150

Magnetic Bubbles on the Moon Reveal Evidence of "Sunburn"

Released on February 27, 2019

Research using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission suggests that lunar swirls, like the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl imaged here by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, could be the result of solar wind interactions with the Moon's isolated pockets of magnetic field.

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.

Music credit: Genetic Spices by Jean Christophe Lemay

Every object, planet or person traveling through space has to contend with the Sun's damaging radiation — and the Moon has the scars to prove it.

Research using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission — 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 and lighter swirls.

Source Material

Credits

Andrew Poppe (University of California at Berkeley): Scientist
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Lead Producer
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Writer
Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Ernie Wright (USRA): Lead Visualizer
Andrew Duberstein (Self): Narrator

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Narrated Movies

Keywords:
SVS >> Magnetic Fields
SVS >> Moon
SVS >> Solar Wind
NASA Science >> Sun
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons