Is There Weather On The Moon?

Imagine Earth's weather: rain falling, winds blowing, clouds drifting across blue skies. Now look at the Moon, hanging silent above us. With NASA's Artemis II mission on the launch pad right now, counting down to its first crewed lunar flight since Apollo 17 in 1972, humanity is about to send four astronauts closer to the Moon than any human has been in over 50 years. And yet, for all that we know about Earth's weather, the Moon remains a place of extreme, alien conditions that most of us rarely consider. While it doesn't have weather like we know it, our closest neighbor experiences its own kind of environmental drama.

No Atmosphere But Not Empty

The Moon does have something of an atmosphere, though calling it that might be stretching things. Scientists describe it as an "exosphere," so tenuous that its particles seldom collide. Compare Earth's atmosphere to a crowded room and the Moon's would be more like a handful of people scattered across a football stadium. Without a typical atmosphere, the Moon has no wind, no rain, and no weather like Earth.

Dance of the Dust