Lunar nanodust: Is it a borderland between powder and gas?

•Ultrafine lunar dust particles capable to levitate due to their thermal fluctuations.•Its huge damage capability can result from vast variety of their masses.•Dust adhesion to artifact’s surface can result from its pollution, not the charges.

There is still no clear understanding of the mechanism responsible for two lunar dust peculiarities. Firstly, tenuous clouds of dust grains amazingly soar at an altitude of about a meter above the sunlit surface. Secondly, lunar dust has a powerful devastating effect on various materials. Here, we show that thermal fluctuations may be both the cause of the low-altitude levitation and the main “damaging factor” of lunar dust. Indeed, fine particles should soar above hot surface and the presence of nanoparticles with enormously varying mass values provides the most efficient use of thermal energy to break bonds between nanoscopic structural elements of target material. These features must be intrinsic to any nanoparticle assemblies in the absence of large conglomerates that are sure to arise in terrestrial conditions.