Every 29.5 days, as the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, our planet ploughs through a vast tail of sodium atoms knocked from the lunar surface and swept outward by sunlight.

The Moon maintains a diffuse sodium tail that Earth crosses around each new moon, when our planet’s gravity focuses part of the stream into a spot visible to specialised cameras. The post Every 29.5 days, as the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, our planet ploughs through a vast tail of sodium atoms knocked from the lunar surface and swept outward by sunlight. appeared first on Space Daily .