Like pipes, statues and nails, the moon can rust. Such rusting has occurred despite a seeming lack of necessary components — but all signs of blame point to the Earth. A new study posits that the relevant rust-forming particles are coming from the Earth’s atmosphere during a short period in the lunar cycle.

Building rust

Hematite, also known as rust, was first found on the moon in 2020 during India ’s Chandrayaan-1 mission. The discovery puzzled scientists because rust is formed through the process of oxidation, which, like the name suggests, requires oxygen as well as water. But there is no oxygen on the moon and water is extremely limited. “It’s very puzzling,” Shuai Li, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, said to NASA in 2020. “The moon is a terrible environment for he

See Full Page