Properties
The significance of acquiring appropriate knowledge of lunar soil properties is great. The potential for construction of structures, ground transportation networks, and waste disposal systems, to name a few examples, will depend on real-world experimental data obtained from testing lunar soil samples. The load-carrying capability of the soil is an important parameter in the design of such structures on Earth.
Due to myriad meteorite impacts (with velocities in the range of 20 km/s), the lunar surface is covered with a thin layer of dust. The dust is electrically charged and sticks to any surface it comes in contact with. The soil becomes very dense beneath the top layer of regolith.
Other factors which may affect the properties of lunar soil include large temperature differentials, the presence of a hard vacuum, and the absence of a significant lunar magnetic field (thereby allowing charged solar wind particles to continuously hit the surface of the moon). A weaker gravitational force and the absence of an atmosphere are additional factors which will affect the design of structures on the surface of the Moon.
Read more about this topic: Lunar Soil
Famous quotes containing the word properties:
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)