Space / DAY 39 OF 40
Moondust came with a familiar smell.
Apollo crews compared dust inside their cabin to spent gunpowder.
Here's the strange part.
Apollo crews brought moondust into their cabin and noticed something oddly familiar: a smell like spent gunpowder. Nobody took a helmet off and sniffed the lunar landscape. This was dust meeting cabin air, and the reported smell was not preserved in the samples back on Earth. Several explanations have been proposed, but the astronauts' description is not a settled chemical diagnosis. (NASA Science)
This was a subjective report about dust brought into an air-filled cabin. It does not mean the Moon has an atmosphere you can sniff.
REALITY CHECK · TRUE OR FALSE?
A lunar sniff test, with conditions.
Astronauts reported the smell after lunar dust entered their air-filled cabin.
Go straight to the receipts.
Curious about the methods, dates or details? Open the original source and keep the caveat in view.
ORIGINAL SOURCENASA ScienceOpen publication ↗NEXT IN THE 40-DAY TRAIL / DAY 40A shark with centuries on its side. ↗