NASA has announced its next moon mission - the Lunar Atmospheric and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) will collect surface samples to determine what gives it its glow, MSN News reported.

LADEE will launch Sept. 6 to suck up as much debris and dust from the moon because not much is known about its surface. Of particular interest is debris that is elevated off the surface of the moon by about 62 miles.

"There are good reasons to be interested in the dust on the moon's surface," Brian Day, a NASA spokesperson with the Lunar Science Institute, said, calling the moon "an ideal place to do astronomical observations."

Scientists hope to determine what causes that dust and debris to elevate to such heights, be it electrostatic levitation or something else entirely. Moon dust is known to be an irritant, with an angular, sharp and sticky texture.

"You don't want to be exposed to it and you definitely don't want to breathe it," Day said. "It could get into the joints of your space suit; it could attach itself to all kinds of instrumentation."

That is why LADEE, an unmanned spacecraft, will undertake the job. The 700-pound, six-and-a-half-foot-long craft will fly around the moon and scoop up samples for further study on Earth.

Scientists previously believed the atmosphere around the moon was empty, but the Surveyor moon missions of the 60s found something different.

"They would capture these fascinating glows in the sky of the moon," Day said. "If the lunar sky was empty, you wouldn't see a glow like that. There would be nothing to reflect the light to the camera. There was something above the surface of the moon that was catching the sunlight."

Unlike the Earth, the moon does not have a thick atmosphere and it does not have a strong magnetic field. LADEE's journey to the moon is expected to take about a month before it will orbit Earth for 100 days and then return.

The moon's surface is so dusty because of billions of years of comets and meteorites crashing to its surface sending bits of space rock all over.

"The surface dust can get positively charged," Day said. "Imagine dust particles sitting on the surface of the moon, getting this positive charge as they start to repel each other, and lifting up."