Scientists are suggesting mining Moondust and spreading it across the earth to stop the temperatures from rising. Here’s everything you need to know about the newest proposal.
How can moondust help reduce global warming
As the summer approaches half the world, global temperatures are going to rise. A new study is proposing mining the moon and scattering Moondust across the world. This is going to help in dimming the sunlight and helping in bringing the temperatures down. The “moonshot” idea proposes the creation of a “solar shield” by scattering dust mined from the moon.
“A really exciting part of our study was the realization that the natural lunar dust grains are just the right size and composition for efficiently scattering sunlight away from Earth,” stated Ben Bromley. Bromley, the lead of the study is a theoretical physicist from the University of Utah. The study is published in PLOS Climate. “Since it takes much less energy to launch these grains from the moon’s surface, as compared with an Earth launch, the ‘moonshot’ idea stood out for us,” he added.
More on the study
As per Bromley and his team, Moondist is the right size of particles that will help in scattering sunlight. They previously considered using sea salt and coal which were dimming the sun by 2 percent. However, the moondust was ideal. It is also important to remember that mining large quantities of dirt from the moon is going to be a major operation. “Nothing should distract us from reducing greenhouse gas emissions here on Earth. Our strategy may just be a moonshot, but we should explore all possibilities, in case we need more time to do the work here at home,” added Bromley.