A few years ago, the smell of the moon began to be discussed publicly. It’s a question that perhaps many haven’t asked themselves, but the fact is that yes, the moon has a smell. According to astronauts, the moon smells like gunpowder. On the other hand, dust and rocks brought from the moon directly to Earth for exploration have completely lost their scent. This is how astronauts explain it.
Don Petit: “It’s hard to describe this smell”
In fact, astronauts who have been to the moon have spoken of the distinct memories the smell of the moon brings back, as they can’t compare it to something tangible. As Don Petit, America’s longest-serving astronaut, commented: “It’s hard to describe this smell; it’s definitely not the olfactory equivalent of describing the sensations on your palate of some new food as ‘tastes like chicken.’ The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation,” adding that “it reminded me of my college summers, where I worked for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging company. It reminded me of a pleasant, sweet-smelling welding smoke. That’s the smell of space.”
Specifically, rock and dust samples are sealed in boxes and transported to Earth for inspection, in this case, by NASA. “By the time the lunar rocks and dust returned to Earth—a total of 380 kilograms from six landings—the smell was gone,” explains Charles Fishman, the space historian, in his book ‘One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission that Flew us to the Moon.’
Charles Fishman: “And no one has quite figured out what caused it”
The historian elaborates on something as difficult to explain as a smell, which is almost like a sensation. “Scientists who have studied the rocks and dirt, handled them, and sniffed them say they have no odor at all.” He refers to the truly inexplicable smell of the Moon this way: “And no one has quite figured out what caused it, or why it was so like spent gunpowder, which is chemically nothing like Moon rock.”
Interestingly, and as a result of all this, in 2020 a team of NASA researchers created Eau de Space. That’s right, a perfume that smelled like the Moon. The goal was to create a lotion that would bring the smell of outer space closer to society. Specifically, the scent of space was created in a laboratory by collecting samples of all the opinions of those who have been in outer space.
Buzz Aldrin: “It was like burnt charcoal”
Steve Pearce, founder of Omega Ingredients, was responsible for creating this fragrance. “I’ve created many scents for exhibitions, such as those of the tropical rainforests of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. I’ve worked on scents used to train wine industry experts, including grape varieties, soils, minerals, and vegetal and floral notes.” Omega Ingredients is a company focused on creating high-quality natural flavors and ingredients.
The expert defines the main description on which he based his creation of this fragrance in this way. “I based the smell I created, like that of spent gunpowder, on Buzz Aldrin’s description of what he smelled when he took off his helmet in the lunar module on the Moon in 1969.” This is how he defines how he began the path towards creating something that for most of us who inhabit planet Earth is unattainable. We can say that it is, literally, a smell that we will never smell. Buzz Aldrin, who was the second human ever to set foot on the Moon, said that “It was like burnt charcoal, or similar to the ashes that are in a fireplace, especially if you sprinkle a little water on them.”
