A Seattle-based company called Interluna is developing a method to simulate thousands of years of solar wind exposure on lunar regolith in just hours, accelerating the natural process by which helium-3 becomes embedded in Moon dust. Helium-3, produced by the Sun and deposited on the lunar surface over billions of years, has potential applications ranging from ultra-low temperature cooling to neutron detection and, long-term, nuclear fusion energy.
Background
Helium-3 is considered a promising fuel for future fusion reactors and is exceedingly rare on Earth but more concentrated on the Moon due to uninterrupted solar wind deposition over billions of years. Several companies and space agencies are exploring lunar resource extraction as a potential economic driver for sustained Moon presence.
- Source
- Ars Technica
- Published
- Aug 26, 2026 at 10:14 PM
- Score
- 6.0 / 10