Dust cloud around moon?

My wife just read about a dust cloud around the moon. Is this old news or what? Would it not take an atmosphere to suspend the dust?

Scott

I've never heard of that...but small (probably VERY small) particles could hang in there at arbitrarily low orbits. With all the (typically small) meteors that impact the fine dust surface (indeed helped Create and maintain it!) I can see where plenty of stuff would get ejected into low orbit. Modern multi-band imaging sats would be able to detect the stuff quite definitively---especially viewing near the dark limb and sol close by. Our imagers traditionally make this a "keep out" zone 'cause the team doesn't want to risk frying the hypersensitive detectors by inadvertently planting the sun (or even the illuminated moon) on it! All it takes in ONE error (even in slewing) and mission is screwed. There's Gota be stuff there though and all it takes is the guts and logistics to target it! I presume that is why they are doing? Hubble, Spitzer, UV? Anyway...NO, it certainly would not need an atmosphere in the traditional sense. Tom Dey