London, November 26: There’s good news for astronauts who dream of walking on the moon’s surface. Each month, about seven straight days come when the Earth’s magnetic field protects a certain area of the moon from the energetic charged particles from the sun.

According to Robert Winglee of the University of Washington in Seattle, some parts of the moon spend about a quarter of its orbit protected by Earth's magnetosphere.

"Very few megaelectronvolt particles would be able to reach an equatorial moon base while it's shielded by the terrestrial magnetosphere," New Scientist magazine quoted him as saying.

He conceded that a solar storm might be dangerous for wandering astronauts, but insisted that there would still be time for them to return to a shielded base. (ANI)