CU Boulder Researchers Develop Moon 'Dustbuster'

BOULDER, CO — It finds its way into space suits, solar panels, helmets and important equipment, and it can cause damage. Sounds like a scary alien parasite, no? Alas, it's far less exciting — we're talking about lunar dust, which many researchers and lunar experts call "very annoying."

Fortunately, a team of researchers, led by the University of Colorado Boulder, have become the "lunar Martha Stewarts" — they've developed a "lunar Dustbuster" that sucks up moon dust using an electron beam.

The device shoots out a concentrated — and safe — stream of negatively charged, low-energy particles that send the dust flying away.

If you think the dust in your house is annoying, well, apparently it doesn't even compare. Xu Wang, a research associate at CU Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said lunar dust is "very jagged and abrasive, like broken shards of glass.”

Eek.

The lunar dust is extremely clingy, but if it's hit with a stream of electrons, the particles begin to push each other away — much like magnets do when the wrong ends are forced together.

“The charges become so large that they repel each other, and then dust ejects off of the surface,” Wang said.

Don't miss the latest news updates in Boulder: Free Boulder Patch Newsletters and Email Alerts | Facebook | Twitter

Wang and his colleagues tested their "moon vacuum" in a NASA "lunar simulant," which is designed to resemble moon dust. Sure enough, the dust was repelled off spacesuit fabric and glass.

The method was able to clean dusty surfaces by an average of about 75-85 percent, so there's more work to be done, researchers said. The team is experimenting with new ways to increase the cleaning power of their electron beam.

One of the team's top researchers, Mihály Horányi, said the technology has a lot of potential.

“You could just walk into an electron beam shower to remove fine dust,” Horányi said.

Because nobody wants their future, luxury home on the moon to be dusty.