What Does The Moon Smell Like?
Monday, February 06, 2006
...like gunpowder. The latest installment in NASA's Apollo Chronicles is all about the smell of Moondust.What is moondust made of? Almost half is silicon dioxide glass created by meteoroids hitting the moon. These impacts, which have been going on for billions of years, fuse topsoil into glass and shatter the same into tiny pieces. Moondust is also rich in iron, calcium and magnesium bound up in minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. It's nothing like gunpowder.
So why the smell? No one knows.
