True Fakes: Scientists make simulated lunar soil

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A speck of Moon dirt. The strange shape tells a tale of violence: It results from the welding of rock mineral and glass by the heat of micrometeoroid impacts. Image credit: David S. McKay NASAJSC.
A speck of Moon dirt. The strange shape tells a tale of violence: It results from the welding of rock, mineral and glass by the heat of micrometeoroid impacts. Image credit: David S. McKay, NASA/JSC.

Life is tough for a humble grain of dirt on the surface of the Moon. It's peppered with cosmic rays, exposed to solar flares, and battered by micrometeorites--shattered, vaporized and re-condensed countless times over the billions of years. Adding insult to injury, Earthlings want to strip it down to oxygen and other elements for "in situ resource utilization," or ISRU, the process of living off the land when NASA returns to the Moon in the not-so-distant future.


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