Huffpost Science  Moon Dust Mystery Solved With Help Of Apollo
Mission Data  Posted: Updated: An Apollo 14 astronaut deploys
the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package's power source
(foreground) and "Central Station" (background), where the Lunar
Dust Detector was mounted. | NASA/JSC  A revisited trove of data
from NASA's Apollo missions more than 40 years ago is helping
scientists answer a lingering lunar question: How fast does moon
dust build up?  The answer: It would take 1,000 years for a
layer of moon dust about a millimeter (0.04 inches) thick to
accumulate, the researchers found. That rate may seem slow by
the standards of Earth but it's 10 times faster than scientists
had believed before, and it means moon dust could pose big
problems for astronauts and equipment alike.  "You wouldn't see
it; it's very thin indeed," Brian O'Brien, a physicist at the
University of Western Australia, said in a statement. "But, as
the Apollo astronauts learned, you can have a devil of a time
overcoming even a small a