Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Could there be a distinction between a full moon as perceived from Earth, and a full moon as perceived by the astronauts who might not be in a direct sun - Earth - moon line?

No. The relevance of the full moon is that's when it's in the Earth's magnetotail. I rather think somebody got misquoted or confused between "passing through the plasma sheet on the night side of the moon" and "anywhere on the moon any time while it was full."

But even if they in the right spot at the time, all the stories about the effects are quite mild, clearly suggesting that people could survive fine, but just there might be some inconveniences or possible, but unquantified damage to some types of instruments.

And we happened to be there during very quiet plasma conditions," ... "Things might be very different during a solar storm, or during a passage through the plasma sheet, the region that was looked at in this study," he said.

"Certainly when you have big electric fields, you start to worry about damage to sensitive electronics, etc. And if those electric fields mobilize dust, that could become an additional problem."


Oh, what's a libertarian? Someone who believes in freedom?? Well I'm not a slave trader if that's what he was thinking.

Last edited by kallog; 03/12/11 04:36 PM.