We know that the Earth influences the Moon by its gravity. We also know that the Moon influences the Earth, from its weather to the tides of its oceans. But what we didn’t yet know was that Covid-19 had an impact on the only permanent natural satellite of the blue planet. During the most critical months in 2020, the Moon would have cooled. A discovery made by several scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, and relayed by the Futurism website.
Due to a lack of atmosphere, the Moon is not protected from solar radiation or strong temperature swings which can reach 120°C during the day then -170°C at night. The Earth, for its part, when it receives radiation from the Sun, absorbs part of it thanks to its atmosphere. But the rest of this radiation goes back into space. This phenomenon is called Earth Light, or “TR” for “terrestrial radiation”. This is the illumination of the Moon (or an object) as a result of solar light returned by the Earth.
This thus influences the temperatures of its surface. “Changes in terrestrial radiation (TR) have a measurable influence on the lunar surface, visualized by an anomalous decrease in nighttime lunar surface temperatures over the period April to May 2020,” underlines the study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. When it is no longer between the Sun and the Earth, as we can see thanks to this simulatorthe Moon only receives radiation from our planet, more or less intense depending on the period.
An indicator of global warming
To understand this cooling phenomenon, scientists analyzed the nighttime temperatures of the lunar surface from six different sites from 2017 to 2023. The results showed a drop in temperatures over the months of April and May 2020 in comparison with those of the same period in previous years, in all the areas studied, indicates Futurism.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries imposed confinement on their populations. Therefore, “anthropogenic activities have been significantly reduced and therefore greenhouse gas emissions”explains the study. So much so that in April 2020, CO emissions2 from the aviation sector had fallen by 75%, those from “surface” transport by 50% and those from energy production by 15%.
This upheaval resulted in the reduction of pollutant emissions and therefore of the overall heat of radiation released by our planet at night. “These results could be corroborated by lunar observatories, which will thus become potential tools for observing environmental and climatic changes on Earth”conclude the authors.
Source: www.slate.fr
