Magnetic Bubbles on the Moon...
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- Visualizations by:
- Tom Bridgman
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Andrew Poppe
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- Produced by:
- Genna Duberstein
- View full credits
View of 'deluxe' model with camera in fixed position. Fades from schematic view showing underground dipole field sources (blue and yellow arrows), induced electric field (red arrows) and magnetic field (gold curves) to a view with Reiner Gamma region of moon. Solar protons (blue) rain down on lunar surface with enhanced accumulation near dipoles.
Much of the Moon's darker-colored 'mare' regions are considered to be older than the lighter-colored mountainous regions. Yet the maria contain a number of ligher-colored regions, such as Reiner Gamma. Why could that be? Many of these lighter regions in the maria appear to correspond to locations of magnetic anomalies which provides a hint for testing various hypotheses.
It is known that the influx of free protons from the solar wind will darken the lighter lunar material. This visualization is created from a particle simulation which illustrates how a local magnetic field may create regions of reduced and enhanced solar proton flux which can lighten and darken (respectively) the underlying lunar material.
View of 'deluxe' model with camera in slow move. Fades from schematic view showing underground dipole field sources (blue and yellow arrows), induced electric field (red arrows) and magnetic field (gold curves) to a view with Reiner Gamma region of moon. Solar protons (blue) rain down on lunar surface with enhanced accumulation near dipoles.
Basic 2-D animated plot of data from this simulation showing magnetic field (blue curves), lunar surface (grey band at bottom), buried dipoles (blue dots on ground), solar wind protons raining down (orange tracks) with some reflected (changing to yellow). A thin band at the lunar surface darkens as particle impacts accumulate.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizers
- Tom Bridgman (GST) [Lead]
- Ernie Wright (USRA)
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Scientist
- Andrew Poppe (University of California at Berkeley) [Lead]
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Producer
- Genna Duberstein (ADNET) [Lead]
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Technical support
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Papers
This visualization is based on the following papers:Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Datasets used in this visualization
Holmstrom Plasma Solver
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Related pages
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ID: 4468 Visualization
Lunar Swirls: Reiner Gamma
Read moreBeginning with a full-globe view of the lunar near side, the camera flies to a close-up, increasingly oblique view of the lunar swirl called Reiner Gamma. Narrated by LRO Deputy Project Scientist Noah Petro. Music provided by Killer Tracks: Facing the Truth — TV Mix by Eric Chevalier. || Lunar swirls are bright, often sinuous features with the diffuse appearance of abstract airbrush paintings. They are unique to the Moon and have long defied easy explanation. Five papers recently published in Icarus (1, 2, 3), JGR: Space Physics (4), and JGR: Planets (5) use a combination of computer modeling and the data gathered by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and other recent lunar missions to shed new light on the origin of these unusual surface decorations.Reiner Gamma, a bright patch amid the otherwise dark Oceanus Procellarum mare, is perhaps the most spectacular example of a lunar swirl. Through backyard telescopes near full Moon, it looks like a small figure-8 on its side. LRO's view from orbit reveals tendrils and daughter swirls that extend for several hundred kilometers.The animation zooms up on an LRO wide-angle camera mosaic of Reiner Gamma, then tilts the view to show that this large swirl is entirely two-dimensional — it's not a mountain range or a valley, but instead looks painted onto the surface. The narrated videos are available in both English and Spanish. ||
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ID: 13150 Produced Video
Magnetic Bubbles on the Moon Reveal Evidence of "Sunburn"
Read moreResearch using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission suggests that lunar swirls, like the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl imaged here by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, could be the result of solar wind interactions with the Moon's isolated pockets of magnetic field. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.Music credit: Genetic Spices by Jean Christophe Lemay || Every object, planet or person traveling through space has to contend with the Sun's damaging radiation — and the Moon has the scars to prove it. Research using data from NASA's ARTEMIS mission — short for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun — suggests how the solar wind and the Moon's crustal magnetic fields work together to give the Moon a distinctive pattern of darker and lighter swirls. ||
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