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Well lunar gravity varies a huge amount by location, it may be possible for some of it to somehow end up in actual orbits, especially when it's intentionally do
by moffkalast 3y ago
Well lunar gravity varies a huge amount by location, it may be possible for some of it to somehow end up in actual orbits, especially when it's intentionally done so.
- Robotbeat 3y agoBut by the same token, those orbits will be unstable and the particles will quickly lithobrake.
- moffkalast 3y agoWell probably, but they could also stay there perpetually.
- kabdib 3y agoMy understanding was that those variations in gravity ("mascons") rendered stable lunar orbits next to impossible. On Apollo missions, orbits degraded by many kilometers over the course of just a few days.
- neffo 3y agoInterestingly, a researcher looking for probable impact sites found Apollo 11's ascent module could potentially still be in orbit. (Though, it's probably not.) https://phys.org/news/2021-07-apollo-ascent-stage-orbiting-moon.html https://phys.org/news/2021-07-apollo-ascent-stage-orbiting-m...