posted 06-23-2004 01:03 AM               

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He was right again in 1955 when, as one of the commanding lunar researchers of the era, he suggested that the moon's surface was covered with a fine rock powder, a view opposed by many of his scientific colleagues. He was not vindicated until the first moon landing in 1969, when the Apollo 11 crew brought the first sample of lunar soil back to Earth. Gold was one of the 110 scientists in the United States and abroad to receive the soil for analysis, and the researchers concluded that the soil on the lunar surface is indeed powdery. Its darkness, they said, is explained by a very thin coating of metal on each individual grain, caused by the penetration of the solar wind. (Gold played an important role in Apollo 11 in another respect: He designed the stereo camera carried on the lunar surface by the astronauts.)

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