Chaos not only on Earth, but also on the Moon: the quarantine due to COVID-19 could have affected its surface | Business

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, before vaccines were developed, governments around the world imposed quarantines to stop or slow the spread of the disease. At the same time, in 2020 In early April, roughly half of the world’s population was ordered to stay at home or put under curfews.

This massive change in human life patterns has affected both wildlife and, of course, our CO2 emissions. Now, thanks to a team studying the nighttime temperature of the Moon’s surface, we know it could have affected the Moon as well.

The team of researchers selected six locations on the surface of the Moon for analysis. After six years of analyzing NASA’s Diviner Reduced Data Record, they discovered an anomaly.

“2017-2023 during the period, the night temperature of the Moon’s surface was analyzed in six different places on the near side of the Moon. The results showed that in 2020 in the months of April-May, i.e. during the period of strict COVID-19 global quarantine, an anomalous drop in temperature was recorded in all the analyzed areas of the Moon’s night surface, compared to the data of the same period in both previous and subsequent years”, – say the researchers.

According to them, since radiation from the Earth also decreased significantly during that period, an anomalous decrease in the temperature of the Moon’s surface was observed.

Overall, the temperature difference on the lunar night was about 8-10 Kelvin. The team compared these differences with sunspot activity, which may have contributed to such a drop in temperature, but found no link.

According to the team, the reason for the drop in temperature is a decrease in the amount of radiation received from the Earth.

During the lunar night, radiation reflected from the Earth’s surface reaches the near side of the Earth’s satellite. As human activity changed and less pollution entered the atmosphere, less radiation was reflected back to the Moon. So it seems that due to the quarantines announced at the time of the announcement of COVID-19, the surface of the Moon became colder for a short time.

The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.