When we eventually colonize the moon, there will be a huge demand for water, oxygen and other resources. Supplying a base from Earth would be far too costly, and also defeat the object of creating a colony. If bases cannot be self sufficient then there is little point. Luckily, all these things can be extracted from the lunar soil.

Collecting moon-dust in a mechanical way could throw up lots of the abrasive material that can harm equipment and astronauts health, as well as ruining the brilliant view you get of Earth.

The answer may be to create a flexible trunk equipped with magnetic coils along its length, that could suck up the iron-heavy dust. The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas.

Another area where this may be useful is in creating insulation for the habitats themselves. Another study presented at the conference suggested that burying lunar habitats with packaged moon dust could help regulate their temperature. On the Moon, the surface temperature ranges from over 100 Celsius during the day to -150 C at night. The magnetic trunk could be perfectly suited to creating this insulation.

Matthew Sparkes is a contributing author for MoT.

When we eventually colonize the moon, there will be a huge demand for water, oxygen and other resources. Supplying a base from Earth would be far too costly, and also defeat the object of creating a colony. If bases cannot be self sufficient then there is little point. Luckily, all these things can be extracted from the lunar soil.

Collecting moon-dust in a mechanical way could throw up lots of the abrasive material that can harm equipment and astronauts health, as well as ruining the brilliant view you get of Earth.

The answer may be to create a flexible trunk equipped with magnetic coils along its length, that could suck up the iron-heavy dust. The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas.

Another area where this may be useful is in creating insulation for the habitats themselves. Another study presented at the conference suggested that burying lunar habitats with packaged moon dust could help regulate their temperature. On the Moon, the surface temperature ranges from over 100 Celsius during the day to -150 C at night. The magnetic trunk could be perfectly suited to creating this insulation.

Matthew Sparkes is a contributing author for MoT.