Henbest writing in New Scientist in 1991 declares:
“Even though the grains are individually small, they are so numerous in interplanetary space that the Earth sweeps up some 100,000 tons of cosmic dust every year.
Perhaps this is a “safe” compromise!
the earth sweeps through 75,716,342 km of space
every 29.52 days
the moon is 384,400 km from the earth.
1 lunar cycle = 29.53059 days
every 29.52 days the moon sweeps through 2,415,256 km of space
as it orbits the earth.
so the moon covers more distance through space in 29.52 days than the earth does.
the distance of the diameter of a circle is used to calculate the circumference of a circle and the moon travels in a circle around the earth , so the moon travels 3.14 (Pi) times the distance through space that the earth travels through space
every 29.52 days.
the earth is 149,600,000 km from the sun.
in 29.52 days the earth travels 76,021,240 km around the sun.
so the moon travels 238,827,769 km in 29.52 days.
the moon is apx 1/4 as big as the earth.
the cross sectional area that the earth sweeps through is
127,800,490 sq km so the earth sweeps through an area around the sun of 9,715,551,766,320,222 cu km every 29.52 days.
the cross sectional area that the moon sweeps through is
9,483,082 km so the moon sweeps through an area around the earth of 2,263,780,586,914,913 cu km every 29.52 days.
2.263 is .2329 % of 9.715
100,000 tons of cosmic dust every year
.2329 % of 100,000 tons is 23290 tons of dust per year collected by the moon.
23290 tpy * 4,500,000,000 years = 104,805,000,000,000 tonns of dust total
a tonn = 2000 lbs
209,610,000,000,000,000 lbs of dust
the surface area of the moon is 37,964,220,000,000 sq meters
each sq meter of the moons surface should have 5521.21 pounds of dust on its surface.
but thats just math and data and things that science ignores these days.
that is some heavy dust , just how heavy is the dust on the moon?
nickel weighs 0.322 lbs per cu inch.
1 sq meter has 1550 sq inches
5521 pounds / 1550 sq inch = 3.56 inches high of solid nickel.
but does the moon dust really weigh more than solid nickel
because the moon dust is only .75 inches thick
