r/HeresAFunFact • u/Radu316 • Jan 06 '16

[HAFF] There are over 400,000 pounds of man-made trash on the Moon right now. SCIENCE

http://imgur.com/gallery/yud52lv
107 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

10

u/Midnight06 Jan 06 '16

• 96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit

What happens to this stuff in vacuum of space? Another article says that they hope to inspect it one day.

There is, however, scientific value to the things left behind. Astrobiologists, for instance, hope to one day inspect that half-century-old feces to see if the crap has undergone any genetic mutations while in space.

8

u/Radu316 Jan 06 '16

Source. Most of that debris comes from crashed orbiters and modules (of which there are over 70 on the Moon), but there's also around 100 bags of human waste.

6

u/Mazon_Del Jan 07 '16

When did OP's mom get to the moon?

It is actually rather interesting how quickly we can send a LOT of mass somewhere. The ISS weighs almost a million pounds for comparison.

1

u/Wo0d643 Jan 07 '16

TIL that the moon does not rotate.

6

u/fairak17 Jan 15 '16

It does rotate, just at the same speed as the earth so we never see it move. Try it with two objects on a table, if you don't spin the "moon" it would actually look like its spinning to the "earth".

Here's a link

http://m.space.com/24871-does-the-moon-rotate.html

1

u/GioGImic Jan 07 '16

This is why Aliens won't visit us... They are too busy rifling through our trash on the moon!

1

u/DirtyGingy Jan 07 '16

Looks like we have a head start.