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<br /><br /><ul><li>The Moon outshines the Sun as cosmic rays bounce off its surface creating gamma radiation.</li><li>They aren’t visible to the naked eye but were spotted using NASA’s <keyword id="7999814" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="fermi-gamma-ray-telescope">Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope</keyword>.</li><li>Gamma rays may make the Moon shine all year around but they’re fatal to lunar explorers who plan to land on the surface.</li></ul>The Moon shines because it reflects light from the Sun — but what if it actually shone brighter than the Sun itself?<br /><br />All it takes for that to happen is radiation, gamma rays and National Aeronautics and Space Organisation’s (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/moon-glows-brighter-than-sun-in-images-from-nasas-fermi">NASA</a>) Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope.<br /><br />
  <div type="image" title="ezgif-2-5d4f1d013c54 (1)" msid="70737512" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Moon shines brighter than the Sun&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>


<br />Unlike the Sun, the Moon doesn’t have a protective magnetic field around itself. All the cosmic rays, which are basically high energy radiation, slam right onto the lunar surface. <br /><br />
  <div type="ExtQuote" text="Cosmic rays are mostly protons accelerated by some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, like the blast waves of exploding stars and jets produced when matter falls into black holes." auname="Mario Nicola Mazziotta, a researcher at Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics, NASA statement"></div>



<br />The result is an explosion of gamma rays, which aren’t visible to the naked eye.<br /><br />But look at the Moon with NASA's Fermi Telescope and it lights up like a tree on Christmas Eve.<br /><br />"Seen at these energies, the Moon would never go through its monthly cycle of phases and would always look full," said Francesco Laparco, a researcher at Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement to NASA.<br /><br /><strong>Why care about gamma rays?</strong><br /><br />Gamma rays may make the Moon shine all year around but they’re fatal to lunar explorers who plan to land on the surface.<br /><br />Studying the amount of radiation on the Moon can help space agencies, like NASA which plans to send astronauts to space in 2024, have better protection in place.<br /><br />Apollo astronauts are already paying the price with higher mortality rate than average due to heart diseases. And this is no ordinary heart disease, it was brought on by exposure to deep space radiation according to a paper published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/srep29901">Scientific Reports</a>.<br /><br />The study asserts that exposure to cosmic radiation causes permanent damage to a person’s DNA and hampers the ability of the body to heal itself.<br /><br />And, it’s because of gamma radiation that scientists are wondering whether it will ever be possible to build a safe habitat for humans off-the-planet — ever.<br /><br /><strong>See also:</strong><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/chandrayaan-2-to-enter-moon-orbit-tomorrow-while-slowing-down/articleshow/70733147.cms">Stop, drop and roll — Chandrayaan 2 prepares to enter the Moon's orbit tomorrow</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-happens-when-an-asteroid-actually-hits-earth/articleshow/70732006.cms">What happens when an asteroid actually hits Earth</a>
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The Moon is shining brighter than the Sun — and that is dangerous

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> recently unveiled the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-details-of-artemis-missions-astronauts-return-to-moon-2020-9">plan for its Artemis program</a>, a series of missions that would return <keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">astronauts</keyword> to the <keyword id="42440" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Moon">moon</keyword>. </li><li>A new study reveals how much <keyword id="31246" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="radiation">radiation</keyword> astronauts are exposed to on the <keyword id="963787" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="lunar-surface">lunar surface</keyword>: a daily dose about 200 times greater than on Earth.</li><li>NASA wants to build a base on the moon, but the new data suggests it'd be safest to bury such a base under 2.5 feet of moon dirt to protect astronauts from radiation. </li></ul><p>NASA wants to build a permanent base on the moon by the 2030s — a place astronauts could stay for extended visits at the lunar south pole.</p><p>But according to a new study, any astronauts who go there would face levels of radiation nearly three times higher than what the astronauts on the <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> station deal with. In high enough doses, long-term exposure to this cosmic radiation poses significant health risks, including cataracts, cancer, and central nervous system diseases. </p><p>The <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1334">new research</a>, published last week in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>, calculates for the first time what a moon-walker's daily dose of radiation would be — a number not previously known.</p><p>"If you think about people staying on the moon for extended periods of time, say on a scientific research station for a year or two, then these levels start getting problematic," Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, a co-author of the new study, told Business Insider. </p><p>The solution, he said, would be for any lunar base to be built beneath the moon's surface.</p><p>"Covering your habitat with sufficient amounts of lunar dirt should do the trick," Wimmer-Schweingruber said.</p><h2>The first study to calculate radiation on the moon</h2><p>Apollo astronauts carried radiation-measuring instruments on their missions in the 1960s and 70s, but those dosimeters could only tell scientists the total amount of radiation the astronauts were exposed to throughout their time in space. That's from blast-off to landing and everything in between — not just on the moon.</p><p>Wimmer-Schweingruber's team was able to document daily radiation levels on the moon's surface by analyzing data collected by China's Chang'e 4 spacecraft, which landed in January 2019.</p><div type="image" title="203 CE4 Lander" height="671" width="1175" msid="78395810" hostid="261"></div><p>A tool aboard Chang'e 4 measured the total amount of radiation it had absorbed, then relayed that radiation data back to Earth via satellites. Then it was simple arithmetic: The researchers divided that total radiation dose by the amount of time the tool had collected data to calculate the daily total. </p><p>"The radiation exposure we have measured is a good benchmark for the radiation within an astronaut suit," Thomas Berger, another co-author of the study, said <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2020-09/ku-fmo092420.php">in a press release</a>. </p><h2>200 times the radiation we experience on Earth</h2><div type="image" title="203 LND" height="2380" width="3174" msid="78395813" hostid="261"></div><p>Radiation is a catch-all term — in Wimmer-Schweingruber's words, it simply describes "energy being deposited into places in your body that it shouldn't be, to sometimes ill effect." </p><p>On Earth, that energy can come in the form of light and heat, which we can feel, as well as sources like X-rays, which we can't. The planet's strong magnetic field and a thick atmosphere shield the surface from most cosmic radiation, , however, which comes from galactic cosmic rays, solar particles speeding away from the sun, neutrons, and gamma rays.</p><p>When people fly on planes, they soar above part of that atmospheric shield, so the dose of radiation they're exposed to increases. Astronauts on the moon, meanwhile, face a daily radiation level five to 10 times higher than Transatlantic fliers, since the moon doesn't have the shield that Earth does.</p><p>So an astronaut on the lunar surface would be exposed to 1,369 microsieverts of radiation per day — about 200 times higher than the daily level on Earth. </p><p>"This is a considerable exposure," Wimmer-Schweingruber said.</p><div type="image" title="Apollo 17" height="1569" width="2000" msid="78395816" hostid="261"></div><p>That's why his team suggests burying lunar bases.</p><p>"Ideally you'd like to be under as much material as is equivalent to Earth's atmosphere," Wimmer-Schweingruber said, adding, "an optimal depth is 30 inches of lunar soil."</p>

After measuring radiation on the moon for the first time, scientists say a lunar base should be built underground to protect astronauts

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/muitosabao/14372794118/in/photolist-bxNsza-pTbHhh-cvZRZ1-c8TCoQ-8A3yu3-9Z2nQc-c8TCmL-hjEwXJ-owmvE8-8jKXLX-nU5jX9-9vbE2t-fCHhPa-hyzqTM-8S8zAi-nVNsVH-oLN1QW-dNXCK4-bdyBtr-3bWDCy-nSedc9-8zZrwM-quiSBH-quiSmT-pxjpNu-qu8Zur-qcL2vE-fgDRwX-eKeG2a-8SbHxL-kiUo82-a1CMfn-9q6g4U-dkEFmu-bbeigR-eiG9Q6-o1zbQ6-eaArfj-gU1p2o-2CVzAQ-ens7vC-p3C9gJ-e6ndh8-8SbFo9-8S8zz6-oqcp7d-9x2Cmr-7B6s2Q-cyfPEJ-eFxGYc">Luis Calçada on Flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Eventually, stars die - not with a whimper, but with a bang.</p><p>When they do, there's the potential that any nearby planets could be devastated by destructive cosmic rays, potentially wiping out life on those worlds.</p><p>We're not quite ready to build any sort of defense for human civilization against a barrage of this sort, according to Milan Cirkovic and Branislav Vukotic of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, writing in a study <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576516309389">published this month in the journal Acta Astronautica</a>.</p><p>But they theorize that in a time span ranging from a few decades to a hundred years away, we might be able to construct the sort of barrier that could withstand a blast of electromagnetic or cosmic-ray radiation that would be caused by a supernova or gamma ray burst from the end of other sorts of star (though predicting these explosions and their trajectories may be more complex than building that barrier).</p><p>And if we aren't alone out here in the universe, other "emerging" civilizations may have built similar protective shields. With that in mind, we have another idea of what to look for out there in our search for alien life. Statistically, it makes sense that life has developed on other planets around other stars - it should be the case, even if we've never spotted it. Now there's something else we can look for, something we might associate with a civilization not too far technologically beyond our own.</p><h2>Humanity+</h2><p>It's not too surprising that we haven't yet spent much time thinking about how to prepare for a cosmic blast, according to Cirkovic and Vukotic. But in recent decades, scientists have started to consider and weigh the impact of various sorts of "existential disasters" - ranging from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-would-happen-if-yellowstone-supervolcano-erupted-2016-7">a supervolcanic eruption</a> to the sort of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-strike-overdue-earth-nasa-2016-12">asteroid strike</a> that helped wipe out the dinosaurs to a cosmic blast.</p><p>It's true that in the short term, these events are incredibly unlikely. They happen on time scales that range into tens or hundreds of millions of years. But they do happen.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>"For the present purposes, we note that no part of any spiral galaxy [like our Milky Way] can be considered safe from cosmic explosions in the long run," the authors write in the paper. "And as the timeframe considered by an intelligent species grows longer, more relevant becomes the issue of mitigation."</p><p>The longer we hope to live and more powerful we become as a species, the more we'll have to consider these possibilities.</p><h2>The "shielding swarm"</h2><p>Cirkovic and Vukotic theorize that a civilization slightly beyond ours, one that's still based on Earth but that makes regular use of resources on the Moon, Mars, as well as nearby asteroids and comets, would have one solution to a supernova blast.</p><p>They dub that future civilization "humanity+", and it sounds similar to what's known as a Kardashev Type 1 civilization (a civilization <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-aliens-have-not-contacted-humans-2015-9/">able to make full use of all energy on our planet</a>; currently most estimate we are at about a Kardashev Type .7).</p><p>Humanity+ wouldn't be able to "prevent" the explosion in the first place. That would take the ability to literally control the full force of a star, something that would require technological leaps so far in the future we have trouble imagining how they'd work (a full Kardashev Type 2 civilization). Burying ourselves under the Earth wouldn't be feasible either. They cite estimates that we'd need to move all of civilization at least three kilometers below the surface of the planet for years, and even then, the surface would be devastated.</p><p>So to prevent a cosmic blast, we'd have to block it in the midpoint somewhere.</p><p>One way that we might be able to do this is to create a massive ice shield, according to the authors.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/16oct_kbos/">NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)</a></span></p><p class="caption">An artist's conception of a Kuiper Belt Object.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Ice is plentiful in space. The Kuiper Belt, on the outer edges of our solar system, is full of it. While we can't conduct massive engineering projects out there, Cirkovic and Vukotic think a group on the level of humanity+ could. Fragments of ice could be polarized so they could be moved about in concert using electromagnetic forces. With enough ice, the authors think a sort of "shielding swarm" could be created that could then be kept ready to be used to block an incoming cosmic blast (though again, predicting those blasts may be further in the future, we have no idea how to do it now).</p><p>And as Paul Gilster <a href="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36591">writes on the blog Centauri Dreams</a>: "The fact that we can imagine [this solution] - although we are a long way from being able to do it - means that more advanced cultures have probably run across the same idea, given that it contradicts no physical laws."</p><p>If that's the case, we can look for it. We can search for swarms around stars that don't obey natural laws of motion. We can look for strange optical properties that might be caused by electromagnetic forces. And we can look for strange reactions to the last phase of a supernova in historical data.</p><p>Gilster points out that this is exactly the sort of technology we want to look for when looking for the technological signatures of advanced alien civilizations: something we can understand. It's something that may seem far-fetched, but it's not impossible. If we know what could be out there, we're more equipped to see it.</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-spots-on-teeth-dental-fluorosis-2016-11">Here's why some people have white spots on their teeth</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RmdTJ3NzE6rcJlha6wzWf5XtymqmsMwE" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The way we might protect ourselves from an exploding star could help us find alien civilizations

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The Moon is shining brighter than the Sun — and that is dangerous

Prabhjote Gill

After measuring radiation on the moon for the first time, scientists say a lunar base should be built underground to protect astronauts

Aylin Woodward

The way we might protect ourselves from an exploding star could help us find alien civilizations

Kevin Loria

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