Magnetic Properties of Unique Apollo 17 Soil 70051

Introduction: Lunar dust, the <20 μm portion of the Moon’s regolith, posed several unanticipated problems during the Apollo Missions. With our plans for returning humans to the Moon, it is paramount to address these issues. For example, an embarrassing problem involved the fact that none of the ‘Milliondollars rock boxes’ built at Oak Ridge National Lab remained sealed at the vacuum of the Moon – i.e., they all leaked exposing the lunar samples to terrestrial air because of the ubiquitous dust. Dust caused breathing problems for the astronauts upon their return to the Lunar Module – is this dust toxic to humans? Furthermore, the extreme abrasiveness of the lunar soil and dust impaired movement of joints in tools and instruments, as well as on astronaut’s suits. Obviously, the lunar dust problem needs to be mitigated [1]. A myriad of nanophase metallic Fe grains (np-Fe) in the impact glass of agglutinates in the soil [2-4] presents unusual and interesting properties, including ferromagnetism, which can be used for dust abatement – e.g., a brush with a magnet attached. Therefore, it is obvious that we must investigate the magnetic properties of this finest portion of the lunar regolith.