The Economic Times

In 2026, scientists recreated 15,000 years of solar wind exposure on Moon soil in 4 hours; the experiment could help with future lunar resource mining

Interlune has recreated the effects of around 15,000 years of solar-wind exposure on lunar soil in just four hours, using accelerated helium ions inside a vacuum chamber. The experiment created a gas-bearing lunar soil simulant that could help companies test equipment for extracting helium-3 and other resources on Earth before sending mining technology to the Moon. The development addresses a major challenge in lunar research, where genuine Apollo soil is extremely limited and conventional simulants do not contain solar-wind gases.