Our Moon experiences COVID-19 global lockdown effect !

Abstract

Systematic investigation of lunar night-time temperatures can possibly be thought as a stable platform to study Earth’s radiation budget and climate change as advocated earlier by several researchers. In this study, we report an interesting observation possibly of changing Earth’s climate as experienced by the Moon, utilising a rare and novel context of COVID-19 global lockdown. Lunar night-time surface temperatures of six different sites on the Moon’s nearside were analysed during the period 2017-2020. Results showed an anomalous dip in the lunar night time surface temperatures for all the sites during April-May 2020, the COVID-19 global lockdown period, when compared to the values of the same period in the past. Since the terrestrial radiation has also showed a significant reduction during that time, the anomalous decrease observed in lunar surface temperatures is attributed to the COVID 19 global lockdown. Therefore, the study shows that the Moon has possibly experienced the effect of COVID 19 lockdown visualised as an anomalous decrease in lunar night-time surface temperatures during that period. These results can be substantiated further from Moon-based observatories in future, thereby making them potential tools for observing Earth’s environmental and climate changes.