As the United States prepares to bring humans back to the moon this decade, the biggest threat to future astronauts is space radiation, which can cause permanent health effects, ranging from cataracts. Cancer And neurodegenerative diseases.
Although the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s proved that it was safe for humans to spend a few days on the lunar surface, NASA did not take daily radiation measurements that would help scientists determine how long. Can live from.
The issue was resolved on Friday after the Sino-German team was published in the magazine The development of science Results Experiments Done in 2019 by Chang 4 Lander of China.
“The moon’s radiation is between two and three times that of the ISS (International Space Station),” astronaut Robert Weimer-Swingruber of Kiel University told AFP.
“Thus your stay on the lunar surface is limited to about two months,” he added, once the exposure to radiation from a nearly week-long voyage there, and a week earlier, is taken into account.
There are many sources of radiation exposure: galactic cosmic rays, the occurrence of small solar particles (for example from solar flares), and neutron and gamma rays through the interaction of space radiation and lunar dust.
The radiation unit is measured using a sewer, which increases the amount absorbed by human tissues.
The team found that the radiation exposure to the moon is 1,369 microseverts per day – about 2.6 times the daily dose of the International Space Station staff.
This is because the ISS is still partially controlled by the Earth’s protective magnetic bubble, called the magnetosphere, which represents the highest radiation from space.
Earth’s atmosphere provides extra protection for humans on the surface, but the higher we go, the more exposed it becomes.
“We have measured the level of radiation on the moon which is 200 times higher than the surface of the earth and five to 10 times higher than the flight from New York to Frankfurt,” added Wimmer-Swingruber.
NASA plans to bring man under the Artemis mission to the moon by 2024 and says it has a long-term presence in which astronauts will work and live on Earth.
There is one task for the Wimmer-Swaingruber – if we want humans to spend more than two or three months: build homes that are protected from radiation and protect them with an 80-centimeter (30-inch) layer of lunar dust.
Agence France-Presse
