If the moon was millions of years old, why was there only an inch or so of dust on the surface?

Answer 1

You are probably alluding to a creationist argument about the amount of dust on the moon versus early predictions. It turns out that the prediction the creationists like to quote was ONE observation taken from the top of mountain to estimate the rate of meteor deposition. This was done before anything had been sent into space and the person who did the observation was quite aware that it was an initial estimate. Well, it was off by several orders of magnitude from the real rate of deposition. When the correct rate, as measured by satelites, is compared to the depth seen on the moon, the age of a few billion (not just million) years is consistent with the observations.

Answer 2

There was a lot of discussion about the depth of the dust on the moon before the first lunar landing. Some feared that we would find dust pools that could be many feet deep. But the first visitors found only a slight layer of dust. The last theory I read stated that this layer was a balance between dust formed by impacts and creation of rock by several processes and ejection of light material from the lunar surface.

Answer 3

You're asking these questions in past tense. The moon IS a few billion years old and was formed from the earth. Since it has no atmosphere or weather, there are no dust accumulations. All the dust on the surface of the moon is caused from the bombardment from meteors and asteroids kicking up loose material upon impact.

Answer 4

Let's take that argument back a little. Big Bang....debris moving outward at the same speed. Seems to me our Earth and the moon were just pieces of "stuff" floating out into space. If the moon is was millions of years old, so is the planet Earth.
We just got lucky and happened to have a different chemical makeup than the moon.

Answer 5

i'm no expert, but i agree that lack of air for erosion is a significant factor. about the only way left to make dust is with meteorite impacts, and not many would be large enuf to make significant amounts of dust, plus with the low gravity a lot of debris from impacts would probably just go back into space. also it depends where the samples were from. most of the moon missions would have found solid landing sites, for all we know there could be areas of deep dust still unexplored

Answer 6

as there are no erosional forces on the moon, i.e. wind, water etc, there is no dust being created other than when things like meteors crash into it. No new dust = no build up.

Answer 7

Billions, not millions.

Because large impacts superheat and fuse materials. The force of smaller impacts is absorbed by the dust layer.

Answer 8

You're from AiG, aren't you...

But it's because it doesn't. The moon's surface's AVERAGE dust cover is one inch, but that doesn't mean that there aren't irregularities.

Answer 9

Maybe the moon is not millions of years old.

Answer 10

When dust gets deeps it compacts onto itself and i am sure this happened on the moon.