Science

What will the roads be like on the Moon? scientists answer

It is proposed to build roads on the surface of the Earth's satellite from abundant material.
Building a full base on the moon can be hindered by fine dust or regolith. When in a low-gravity environment, tiny charged particles float in space and pose a serious threat to the complex workings of Earth's mechanisms. But scientists have discovered how to take advantage of it. The regolith can be turned into smooth, clean roads. All you need to create a laser is a large lens. ScienceAlert writes about this.
The European Space Agency's (ESA) PAVER project investigated whether melting regolith with a large beam of focused light could be a technology for creating road surfaces on the Moon. This process is called sintering and involves creating a solid mass of small particles using pressure or heat without liquefying the material.
Scientists have conducted experimental studies to test the possibility of using materials on the Moon to create road tiles. They suggested using a lens to focus sunlight. The resulting beam would be hot enough to melt lunar dust and create fusion tiles that could be used to pave the way.
The experiments were conducted using a fine gray powder known as EAC-1A. This is a simulator of lunar regolith developed by ESA, which is a mixture of minerals in proportions similar to those found on the Moon.
The scientists used a CO2 laser, in which an electric current passes through carbon dioxide and creates a beam of light 45 millimeters in diameter. This beam of light was focused on EAC-1A and with its help the scientists created various patterns and shapes by melting the dust. They tried using different laser powers to find the optimum temperature for wafer production.
And it worked. The laser power the scientists used matched that of sunlight on the Moon's surface.

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