15,000 years of solar wind in four hours? A Seattle company gives it a go.

Ars Technica reports that helium‑3, a rare isotope created in the Sun’s nuclear fusion, is carried to the Moon by the solar wind and has accumulated in the lunar regolith for billions of years. A Seattle‑based company is planning an experiment that would compress the effect of roughly fifteen thousand years of solar‑wind exposure into a four hour test. Because helium‑3 is considered a potential fuel for future fusion reactors, the trial could help assess how to harvest the isotope from moon dust.

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