there has been concerns about ships landing on Moon raising dust hanging around for long and thus causing issues for the following landing/launches. Looks like we're beginning such a pollution of the near-Moon space.
There's some cool NASA concepts around for what is basically a household microwave with wheels that melts the regolith into a ceramic type material.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/35319/can-you-real...
In general no. With regards to other human people and hardware that might be on or near the moon when it's kicked up, it definitely is a concern.
NASA once calculated, "when a rocket lands on the moon, or launches, how far can the kicked-up dust travel?". And got the answer "everywhere on the moon is in range. Some dust will also escape the moon."
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/18663203/apollo-11-annive...
> that could be bad news for any future habitats that NASA or other space agencies might want to build on the Moon
> “It could ruin a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon if it just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,”
> will be sand-sized stuff blown completely off the Moon into orbit around the Sun.
Correct. IDK about impacts, but for rocket exhausts, the surprising result is that some of the kicked-up dust can achieve escape velocity, and "where it hits the ground" is "anywhere on the moon" - denser nearby, obviously, but there's no 100% safe distance anywhere on the lunar surface.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/18663203/apollo-11-annive...
No, because it's not a gas (dust has basically zero pressure) and it won't stay aloft at a constant or nearly constant altitude. It will either fall back to the surface or escape.
Only for short time, while it's vaporised into a gas by the impact. For that time it will join the rest of the "infinitesimal amount of gas" that forms a very tenuous atmosphere around the moon.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/news/lunar-atmosphe...