Images

The molten rock mixture cools upon contact with lukewarm water, instantly creating glassy agglutinate.
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When the water is separated from the cooled molten rock, agglutinate is collected.
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The USGS has created man-made moon dirt, or regolith, to help NASA prepare for upcoming moon explorations. Four tons of the simulant is expected to be made by this summer of 2009 and turned over to the scientific community involved in lunar exploration.

Plasma torches at Zybek Advanced Products blaze at over 37,000 degrees Fahrenheit, melting the rock mixture.

In an unearthly series of events, the USGS has created man-made moon dirt, or regolith, to help NASA prepare for upcoming moon explorations. Four tons of the simulant is expected to be made by this summer of 2009 and turned over to the scientific community involved in lunar exploration.

Rocks are collected from the Stillwater Mine in Nye, Montana to be used for making lunar regolith simulant.
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The plasma torch melter in Boulder, Colorado exists nowhere else in the world. The mixed and ground rock on the left in a 1-ton bag is fed into the melter to be made into glass.
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When firing, the Zybek melter plasma torches must be viewed wearing long sleeves and a welding mask to avoid potential burns from the 37,000 degree Fahrenheit blaze.
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To present the most information in a single view of Jupiter's moon, Io, a global color mosaic, derived from Galileo color images, was superposed on a higher resolution image mosaic, derived from merging the best resolution images from spacecrafts Galileo and Voyager 1.

Rocks from the Stillwater Mine are collected, ground, and blended with other rocks and materials to make the lunar regolith simulant.
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The molten rock streams through an opening in the melter into a large container of water below, where it instantly cools into glass.
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A mosaic of the surface of Mercury made from hundreds of images taken by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft.

Rocks from the Stillwater Mine are brought to the USGS in Denver, Colorado, where they are sledged and ground before entering the plasma melter at Zybek Advanced Products.
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View of the Stullwater Mine, where rocks are collected for making lunar regolith simulant.
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The USGS has created man-made moon dirt, or regolith, to help NASA prepare for upcoming moon explorations. Four tons of the simulant is expected to be made by this summer of 2009 and turned over to the scientific community involved in lunar exploration.

The agglutinate created by the plasma melting process is later ground and blended with other materials to create lunar regolith simulant.
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The agglutinate created by the plasma melting process is later ground and blended with other materials to create lunar regolith simulant.
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