Lunar swirls are light-colored, sinuous features on the Moon’s surface, bright enough to be visible from a backyard telescope. Some people think they look like the brushstrokes in an abstract painting. But these are not mere artistic flourishes: NASA images show that the tendrils from some lunar swirls extend for hundreds of miles. Lunar swirls have defied easy explanation, but recent modeling and spacecraft data shed light on the twisty mystery. The data shows that rocks in the swirls are magnetized, and these rocks deflect or redirect solar wind particles…
