Meteorite impacts produce most of moon’s thin atmosphere, study reveals

Scientists find impact vaporisation responsible for about 70% and a process known as solar wind sputtering 30%

The mystery of how the moon’s thin atmosphere is produced has been solved, according to scientists studying lunar samples brought back by the Apollo missions.

Discovered in the 1960s and 70s, when Nasa sent astronauts to the moon, the lunar atmosphere is far thinner than that of Earth, and was thought to arise from space weathering of the moon’s surface.

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