alt Hacker Newsthe detail that kills me is moon dust has never contacted oxygen in billions of years, so every time an astronaut came back inside they were essentially doing a chemistry experiment for the first time. the whole moon is just waiting to react with air
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FranOntanaya • today at 5:41 AM
Well, sort of. Solar wind does include oxygen ions, so it's exposed to a small extent.
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stonecharioteer • today at 2:42 AM
This is what trips me up about terraforming. If we learn to create an atmosphere, are we going to instantly poison the oxygen we introduce?
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The danger is not really great.
Any dust on the Moon still consists mostly of silicates which cannot be oxidized.
When dust comes from meteorites, it contains a fraction made of iron sulfide (with small quantities of other sulfides) and another fraction made mainly of hydrocarbons.
The metallic sulfides can be oxidized, but they will not burn violently. The hydrocarbons are like a tar or pitch, because the volatile hydrocarbons would have sublimated in vacuum. So neither that tar is easily flammable.
The gunpowder smell is likely to be caused by the oxidation of the sulfides from the dust, which releases sulfur dioxide, the same like burnt gunpowder.