What does the moon smell like?

Question

I know you haven´t been there....but do you know the answer?

No silly answers pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase

Answer 1

Toe Jam

Answer 2

I don't know...Go there yourself and find out.

Answer 3

Eh. I don't think there would be any "smell", because the moon has no atmosphere, so there's nothing to breathe in. Besides that, you'd choke before you could get enough air in to smell.

Sure, it'd probably smell dusty and of rocks if there was an atmosphere, but if you're stuck in a spacesuit up there, the moon's going to smell like the air in your spacesuit.

Answer 4

If you opened your helmet to sniff,all the air would rush out of your lungs and you would smell nothing.

Answer 5

THe moon smells like...

...gunpowder. The latest installment in NASA's Apollo Chronicles is all about the smell of Moondust. Apparently, the stuff would make its way back into the landers stuck to boots and gloves. From Science@NASA:

"It is really a strong smell," radioed Apollo 16 pilot Charlie Duke. "It has that taste -- to me, [of] gunpowder -- and the smell of gunpowder, too." On the next mission, Apollo 17, Gene Cernan remarked, "smells like someone just fired a carbine in here."...

What is moondust made of? Almost half is silicon dioxide glass created by meteoroids hitting the moon. These impacts, which have been going on for billions of years, fuse topsoil into glass and shatter the same into tiny pieces. Moondust is also rich in iron, calcium and magnesium bound up in minerals such as olivine and pyroxene. It's nothing like gunpowder.

So why the smell? No one knows.

Answer 6

Gunpowder, evidently....

Read up on what the Apollo astronauts said.

Answer 7

Gunpowder.  According to the astronauts.

Moon dust has lots of little sharp bits of what amounts to broken glass.  It comes from little bits of the solar system slamming into the surface at over ten thousand miles an hour.  It makes the soil abrasive, too.  It also has an electrostatic charge, from direct exposure to the solar wind.  This makes it sort of float around a bit.  It gets everywhere.

So you hold your breath for a quarter of a million miles to get some of this stuff, and you can't get rid of it.

Answer 8

I would say -  dusty and dry.

Whether that is right I dont know.

Answer 9

I'm told that lunar material smells like gunpowder, but whether that's before or after it's been fired, I don't know.

Answer 10

old cheese

Answer 11

lol nothing no air no smell right

Answer 12

I don't think the moon can smell of anything, because there is no atmosphere, no air and nothing on it. Prehaps if you brought a space rock back to Earth you could sniff it to see if it has a scent.

Answer 13

chalk

Answer 14

The Apollo astronauts reported a smell like spent gunpowder when they returned to the LEM after being out on the surface. Though the composition of moon dust is nothing like gunpowder, it's thought that the sudden exposure to oxygen after being in an oxygenless environment probably caused an oxidisation reaction, which accounts for the curious odour.

Answer 15

cheese, green. hey you cant prove me wrong, you havent been there either. and i have, using my rocketship i have built in my garage.

Answer 16

That depends, there are various minerals on the moon.

You will know the right answer if you know how the combination of these elements will smell... Very difficult!

Common lunar minerals:

Plagioclase feldspar (White to transparent gray; usually as elongated grains.) contains:

Calcium (Ca)

Aluminium (Al)

Silicon (Si)

Oxygen (O)

Pyroxene (Maroon to black; the grains appear more elongated in the maria and more square in the highlands.) contains:

Iron (Fe),

Magnesium (Mg)

Calcium (Ca)

Silicon (Si)

Oxygen (O)

Olivine (Greenish color; generally, it appears in a rounded shape.) contains:

Iron (Fe)

Magnesium (Mg)

Silicon (Si)

Oxygen (O)

Ilmenite (Black, elongated square crystals.) contains:

Iron (Fe),

Titanium (Ti)

Oxygen (O)

Answer 17

The moon has been sitting in a high vacuum for billions of years.  All volatile chemicals would have evaporated away long ago, leaving no smell.

Answer 18

At a guess I'd say it probably doesn't smell much like cheese but smells more like it would if you were standing in a cold dark quarry.

Answer 19

if there is no air it must be hard  but also dusty

Answer 20

Dust.

Answer 21

Moon Dust