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Well, the solar wind (even though it is not a "wind") is still a stream of charged particles that move away from the sun and can interact with objects that are in their way.

Because Earth has a magnetic field, most of the ions that would strike the Earth are actually captured by our magnetic field.

The Moon has (practically) no magnetic field, so these charged particles will strike its surface and cause a (very slow) process of erosion.

In some areas, there will be grains of dust that will be struck by the charged particles and become charged. If the grains of dust are small enough and gather a sufficient electrical charge, they will repel each other and you may end up with a "cloud" (very close to the surface) of charged dust particles.

The stream of charged solar wind particles is like an electric current (it is a flow of electrically charged particles). A flow of electrical current generates a magnetic field. A magnetic field will interact with electrically charged particles and cause them to accelerate.

Therefore, it is possible that the "cloud" of dust particles moves in a certain direction, as if pushed by a wind.

But is that a wind? I would tend to say no as "wind" -- in relation to objects being pushed -- is normally the movement of a medium that carries the objects being pushed (like air molecules pushing against the dust on my floor).

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The Moon does have an extremely tenuous atmosphere. For example, radon is out-gassing from rock containing heavy radioactive elements. Radon atoms are relatively heavy so that they will stick around a bit before escaping to space, leaving a very thin atmosphere (so thin, it is still a better vacuum than the best vacuums ever attained in our labs).

Atmospheric molecules will have two types of movement:
random, due to heat (atoms move about and hit each other, going faster and faster as temperature goes up), and
directional, as a "mass" of gas moves in a given direction (what we call wind).

The "atmosphere" on the Moon is so tenuous that one could not measure any overall "trend" of movement of masses of atmospheric atoms, over the random movements of individual atoms due to temperature.
Meaning: it would be impossible to observe or measure a "wind".

On the Moon, the dust on my floor would not be pushed against the screen door.

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Other than that, I can't think of anything else on the Moon that could be called wind.

2007-08-26 08:32:57 · answer #1 · answered by Raymond 7 · 0 0

Yes. The solar wind. 'Wind' from the sun. Read about Apollo mission 'solar wind sheets' that captured particles from the energy that the sun exudes. The astronauts on the moon unfurled this experiment and at the conclusion of their moon-walking, rolled it back up again and brought it back to Earth.

2007-08-26 07:45:38 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2 1

Nope. Only the solarwind. And it isn´t too powerful. The "air" on the moon can only be described as a more perfect vacuum than can be replicated on earth.

2007-08-26 07:22:10 · answer #3 · answered by DrAnders_pHd 6 · 3 0

No, There is no atmosphere.

Solar wind is a euphemism, not an actual "air" current.

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2007-08-26 08:04:41 · answer #4 · answered by muddypuppyuk 5 · 0 0

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