From: henry@spsystems.net   
      
   In article <5dcb47db.0307161456.7bfeabc7@posting.google.com>,   
   Mike Miller  wrote:   
   >The daytime lunar temperature swings between something like 400K and   
   >100K. What is the average temperature several meters into the lunar   
   >soil? Above or below 273K?   
      
   Data is limited.  At the Apollo 17 site, temperature 2m down was 256K,   
   rising about 1.3K/m.  The Apollo 15 site was a few degrees colder, and may   
   have had a slightly higher gradient, but the deepest data we have there is   
   only 1.5m down so it's hard to be sure.   
      
   Day-night temperature swings are only a few degrees at 0.3m, and are   
   nonexistent at 1m.  The lunar soil is an extremely good insulator.  (Note,   
   this means that buried equipment or facilities will need to worry about   
   cooling, not heating.  Only something that is generating no heat of its   
   own at all will cool to the ambient soil temperature.)   
      
   We don't have a good picture of either how much variation there is from   
   place to place, or what happens at much greater depths.   
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   MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046,         | Henry Spencer   
   first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal!            | henry@spsystems.net   
      
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