Discovery of natural few-layer graphene on the Moon They report the discovery and direct microscopy visualization of natural few-layer graphene in the CE-5 lunar soil samples, by utilizing a variety of characterization techniques. Graphene is embedded as individual flakes or formed as part of a carbon shell enclosing the mineral particles. The result reveals one typical structure of indigenous carbon in the Moon, and its formation mechanism has been proposed. This finding may reinvent the understanding of chemical components, geography episodes and the history of the Moon. The graphene is abundant near the metal-containing (including Fe) compound, as also described in the following core-shell structures.
Abundant carbon sources on the moon would be good for future development of the moon and solar systems. This would enable the creation of methane or other carbon based fuel. IF graphene was abundant then it could be good for using graphene to make products on the moon. Graphene is one of the strongest and lightest materials. IF graphene is formed on the moon in a more efficient process then we could learn how to make graphene more efficiently on earth.
The CE-5 lunar regolith was drilled at a depth of ~0.9 m in the northern Oceanus Procellarum at 51.8 degrees west longitude and 43.1 degrees north latitude on the lunar frontal surface on December 1, 2020, which has not been heavily affected by human interference. The sample was recently returned from the moon.
The identification of graphene in the core-shell structure suggests a bottom-up synthesis process rather than exfoliation, which generally involves a high-temperature catalytic reaction. Therefore, a formation mechanism of few-layer graphene and graphitic carbon is proposed here. Volcanic eruption, a typical high-temperature process, occurred on the Moon. Lunar soil can be stirred up by solar wind, and high-temperature plasma discharge can be generated on the Moon’s surface. The Fe-bearing mineral particles, such as olivine and pyroxene, in lunar soil might catalyze the conversion of carbon-containing gas molecules in the solar wind or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons into graphitic carbon of different thicknesses and morphologies on their surfaces including few-layer graphene flakes and carbon shells. In short, the formation of graphitic carbon may be attributed to high-temperature processes resulting from volcanic eruptions. Importantly, this mechanism suggests the presence of a carbon-capture process on the Moon, which might lead to the gradual accumulation of indigenous carbon. Since the discovery of graphene in meteorites or on the moon is extremely rare, impact processes from meteorites, which create high-temperature and high-pressure environments, may also lead to the formation of few-layer graphene and
graphitic carbon. Further research is needed to understand its formation mechanism in detail.
Carbon is a fundamental element for understanding the formation and evolution of planetary bodies. The origin of the Moon has aroused intensive interest and debate, from which several hypotheses have been proposed. The prevalent giant impact theory has been strongly supported by the notion of carbon-depleted Moon derived from the early analysis of Apollo samples. Recently, this consensus has been significantly challenged by the observation of global carbon ion fluxes from the Moon, suggesting the presence of indigenous carbon on the Moon. This observation is consistent with the presence of graphite in the lunar soil. Therefore, it is highly desirable to unravel the crystalline structure of the indigenous carbon phase by conducting further characterization studies on the young lunar samples.
Graphene has revolutionized the research of condensed matter physics and materials science with its novel physical phenomena and extraordinary properties. It plays an increasingly important role in extensive areas including planetary and space science. It is estimated that ~1.9% of total interstellar carbon is in the form of graphene, and protosolar graphene has been identified in the carbonaceous chondrites. Since graphene has been routinely prepared by using artificial techniques with distinct morphologies and properties as determined by the specific formation process, the composition and structure characterization of natural graphene would provide rich information on the geologic evolution of parent bodies
Recent studies have identified Basalt, ilmenite (FeTiO3), pentlandite, amorphous features and even photosynthetic catalysts in CE-5 lunar soil.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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What is China trying to with this rather important sounding, but irrelevant statement? If it want’s to ignite not just a new “space race”, but a space war? It’s doing a great job. Let’s be honest. Dictatorships can do certain things effectively. And who cares about the millions of individual human beings they grind under their heel when they do whatever that is? If you don’t care, in my country (the USA) or any where else, you damn well better. For your and everyone else’s sake.
Well, it’s interesting.
It had long been reported that small amounts of graphite were discovered in the Apollo moon landing samples. I guess it just wasn’t reported how thin they were…
The only place left for graphene hype is on the moon. They also discovered boulders containing LK99 and an NFT token.
Made me laugh.
Few layer stanene is reportedly a topological superconductor at its edges. Stanene has the same hexagonal beehive lattice structure as graphene and can transition between gray tin and white tin at near-standard-temperature-and-pressure of 0C and 1 bar. Near the surface of stanene, there are broken bonds so many holes can form but there near the Fermi level. This zigzagging tin edge is akin to the carbon backbone proposed by Bill Little of Stanford in 1964 for organic superconductors which do not require phonons to achieve superconductivity. Metal surfaces are generally p-type because of the myriad non-electron-occupied energy states near the Fermi level.
What does space smell like ? An astronaut said that it smelled like a backyard grill. Carbon is created in great abundance in the universe when massive stars near their ends of life. Iron is also the end product at their cores when their final core collapse occurs due to the instabilities triggered by the endothermic formation of iron in a core. Backyard grills have iron, high temperature, carbon compounds from foods being grilled and natural gas being burnt. We have been using iron nanoparticles to make carbon nanotubes from methane at high temperature. The same process is likely the origin of the graphitic carbon on the back side of the Moon. It’s basically soot.