{"id":210484,"date":"2025-04-03T14:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/solar-cells-made-of-moon-dust-could-power-future-space-exploration"},"modified":"2025-04-03T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:37:10","slug":"solar-cells-made-of-moon-dust-could-power-future-space-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/solar-cells-made-of-moon-dust-could-power-future-space-exploration","title":{"rendered":"Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/solar-cells-made-of-moon-dust-could-power-future-space-exploration.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The same dirt that clings to astronauts\u2019 boots may one day keep their lights on. In a study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/device\/fulltext\/S2666-9986(25)00060-2\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Device<\/i>, researchers created solar cells made out of simulated moon dust. The cells convert sunlight into energy efficiently, withstand radiation damage, and mitigate the need for transporting heavy materials into space, offering a potential solution to one of space exploration\u2019s biggest challenges: reliable energy sources.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe solar cells used in space now are amazing, reaching efficiencies of 30% to even 40%, but that efficiency comes with a price,\u201d says lead researcher Felix Lang of the University of Potsdam, Germany. \u201cThey are very expensive and are relatively heavy because they use glass or thick foil as cover. It\u2019s hard to justify lifting all these cells into space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Instead of hauling solar cells from Earth, Lang\u2019s team is looking at materials available on the moon itself. They aim to replace Earth-made glass with glass crafted from <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/lunar+regolith\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">lunar regolith <\/a>\u2014the moon\u2019s loose, rocky surface debris. This change alone could cut a spacecraft\u2019s launch mass by 99.4%, slash 99% of transport costs, and make long-term lunar settlements more feasible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The same dirt that clings to astronauts\u2019 boots may one day keep their lights on. In a study published in Device, researchers created solar cells made out of simulated moon dust. The cells convert sunlight into energy efficiently, withstand radiation damage, and mitigate the need for transporting heavy materials into space, offering a potential solution [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1633,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-power","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}