Moon's Magnetic Umbrella Seen as Safe Haven for Explorers (Space.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

The lunar surface is a harsh landscape; a bone dry expanse of impact-pummelled rock whose "seas" have long been known as a misnomer. The only precipitation is in the form of solar and cosmic radiation that gradually darkens the dust and corrupts the cells of any astronauts present.

Yet amidst this hostile landscape a number of safer havens exist where the lunar surface escapes much of this sleet of radiation. One such benign feature, named Reiner Gamma , lies on the Moon’s Earth facing side and is marked by a 37-mile-long (60 km) bright swirl and one of the strongest magnetic fields found on the lunar surface.

“The Moon presently has no global magnetic field similar to the Earth's. The observed fields are caused by permanent magnetization of parts of the lunar crust,” said Lon Hood of the University of Arizona.
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“The main benefit would be to provide samples that are potentially free from solar-wind ion bombardment," Hood said. "This would be useful for understanding better the process that darkens the lunar surface and other airless silicate surfaces in the inner solar system.”

Not only does the magnetic field preserve an unsullied lunar surface but it would partially protect any astronauts strolling beneath, “The lunar fields are strong enough to deflect solar wind ions with energies of several kilo-electron-volts,” Hood said.


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more: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061114_reiner_gamma.html

For how these magnetic regions formed, and lots of links, see the link above.

[sakabatou]

1. Cool.

[bananas]

2. That's where the obelisk is buried.