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Use the moon as a platform for climate observations on Earth

Will the expected return to the moon, in the next decade, also bring in its wings a real benefit to our world, in fact the possibility of accurately monitoring the warming of the Earth, and perhaps even better dealing with it?

Yoram Ored, Galileo

An accepted assumption is that in the not too distant future humans will land on the moon and establish permanent bases on it. It is also assumed that the moon will be used in the future as a transition base for space flights to much more distant celestial bodies, such as Mars. However, it turns out that the moon may actually be used by us for "closer" purposes: as an observation site and monitoring of climate change on Earth.
Dr. Shopang Huang (Huang), from the University of Michigan in the United States, believes that the moon may be an ideal place to establish a network of observatories that will be dedicated to studying climate change on our planet. The absence of an atmosphere, biosphere or water (which could interfere with the measurement of the radiation coming from the Earth) makes the moon a very suitable site for such monitoring.
Global climate change is driven by an imbalance between the amount of heat added to the Earth and the amount of heat emitted from it into space. Therefore, it is very important to know the balance between the radiation energy that reaches us from the sun and that which returns and is emitted from the earth, in order to assess its effect on climate change. It is difficult to determine the amounts of energy reaching the Earth and leaving it using instruments located on the surface of the Earth, or even in satellites orbiting it. The moon, according to Huang, is a better candidate as a site for such measurements.
When areas on the moon are illuminated by sunlight (or in other words - it is daytime), the temperature on their surface is, of course, affected by the energy reaching them from the sun. On the other hand, when the sun is hidden in those areas (night prevails), the temperature changes are greatly affected by the radiation coming from the earth. Huang examined findings of thermometers left by the astronauts of the Apollo 15 spacecraft in 1971.
He followed the change in temperature between the middle of 1972 and the end of 1975, and discovered that this change corresponded to the changes in the amount of radiation emitted from the earth during this period. For reasons that are not yet understood, in that period there was actually a decrease in the amount of radiation that reached the surface of the earth from the sun, due to an increased return of the radiation to space. This occurrence caused the temperatures on the surface of the earth at that time to be lower than usual. This increased reflection means that the radiation that reached the moon at that time had to be greater than usual. Indeed, it turns out that the temperature gauges on the surface of the moon showed an increase in temperature during that period.
The current period, when global warming is on the global agenda and at the same time there is an effort by many countries to reach the moon, is, according to Huang, an excellent time to join forces and establish a network of observatories on the moon that will measure the radiation emitted by the earth.

Will the expected return to the moon, in the next decade, also bring in its wings a real benefit to our world, in fact the possibility of accurately monitoring the warming of the Earth, and perhaps even better dealing with it?

One response

  1. The Hadeans who wanted to go to Agia to the land of Van Izlicho to conduct an experiment in which fragments for humans mod mod
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