Scientists Smell the Moon to Identify its Mineral Environment {The 5th Sense in the News}

In another example of how our sense of smell is used for survival purposes, Japanese scientists have been researching the smell of the moon in order to be able to identify the minerals that make up its surface. The project is meant to help assess the future possibility of humans settling on the moon by looking at the risks of radiation. We're that close...

"The moon's whiff of an atmosphere has been sniffed by a Japanese spacecraft under very special conditions and confirmed as coming largely from sunlight brutally hammering the lunar surface. [...]

What they found confirmed that it's really just powerful ultraviolet light knocking beat-up atoms, or ions, off the lunar surface and manufacturing the bulk of the weak lunar perfume."

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For other articles on the smell of outer space, you can read:

Smell of Outer Space Recreated for NASA

Another Olfactory Facet of Outer Space: A Whiff of Vaccuum is the Next Big Trend