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Meteorites give the Moon its thin atmosphere
Impacts that vaporize bits of the lunar surface maintain the Moon's thin atmosphere.
Researchers from MIT and the University of Chicago have now found that lunar soil samples collected by astronauts during the Apollo era show evidence that meteorites, from hulking meteors to micrometeoroids no bigger than specks of dust, have launched a steady flow of atoms into the exosphere. “Over long timescales, micrometeorite impact vaporization is the primary source of atoms in the lunar atmosphere,” the researchers said in a study recently published in Science Advances. Studying Martian soil, which may land on Earth with sample return missions in the future, could also give more insight into how meteorite impacts affect its atmosphere.
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