Imaging Charged Lunar Dust on Various Surface Materials*

Unlike soil found on Earth, lunar dust particles are soft and very sharp. Additionally due to the lack of an atmosphere, the moon receives constant blasts of radiation from the sun which can lead to charged lunar dust particles. The combination of lower gravity and electrostatic forces can cause lunar dust to levitate above the moon’s surface. This dust is highly abrasive and can damage machinery, spacesuit equipment, and humans. After simulating this levitating dust in vacuum chambers, images of the dust can help to understand the effects of the dust on different materials. Using Touplite and ImageJ we compared collection and removal of charged dust on insulators and conductors. Additionally, we compared three different surface finishes on the conductors. The images gathered thus far show insulators collect more dust, and vertically oriented conductors do not collect a dust film. In future research additional experiments will be done with varying positions and shapes of conductors inside the plasma to learn how the dust will be distributed. This work is supported with funding from the NSF EPSCoR and the U.S. Department of Energy.