EpiStack

O-23 - The Moon, unshielded by any atmosphere, has endured billions of years of cosmic-ray heavy-ion bombardment and remains ordinary matter

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Properties11
type
observation
id
O-23
statement
The Moon has no atmosphere, so cosmic rays — which include a significant heavy-ion (notably iron) component — have struck iron-rich lunar surface material directly for billions of years, producing heavy-ion collisions at energies comparable to or exceeding man-made experiments; the Moon persists as ordinary matter.
source
S-1 - LSAG report- Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions
additional_sources
merged_from
locator
  • S-1: §5
  • S-3: §I.C; §V.D
quote
Since the Moon, unlike planets such as the Earth, is not protected by an atmosphere, cosmic rays hitting the Moon have produced heavy-ion collisions over billions of years at energies that are comparable to or exceed those reached in man-made experiments.
generally_known
true
data_basis
—
link_state
linked

Firmly-established background fact (no dataset of this paper); the lunar strangelet argument rests on it. Unlike Earth-based bounds, no atmospheric shielding caveat applies, and both projectile (cosmic-ray iron) and target (lunar-surface iron) are heavy ions, so the collisions are genuine analogues of collider heavy-ion collisions.

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