The Origin of the Moon’s Thin Atmosphere Might Be Tiny Impacts

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The Origin of the Moon’s Thin Atmosphere Might Be Tiny Impacts

The Moon is anything but a lifeless rock hanging in our sky. It has pockets of water ice trapped on its surface, caves in which astronauts might one day live, and even an incredibly tenuous atmosphere known as an exosphere. That thin layer of atoms, which begins at the lunar surface and extends 100 kilometers (60 miles) into space, exists mostly because small micrometeoroids strike the surface, vaporizing atoms and lofting some into the void. Th…