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Earth’s moon was long believed to be made of “dead” rocks, but new evidence suggests otherwise.
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NASA’s lunar orbit data reveals recently exposed hills that have emerged, leading scientists to believe they are the result of an active tectonic system.
Scientists have found more than 500 exposed point rocks on the side of the nearby moon, free of lunar peaks or lunar earth scattered on this side of the moon’s surface.
And these hills with an exposed rock base may be evidence that tectonic activity broke the moon’s surface not too long ago, and the rock debris was able to slide into cracks and voids, leaving the rocks exposed.
Because most of the moon’s surface is covered in rocky debris, it is rare for such open spaces to exist, leading the team of scientists to suggest that this crack is recent and may continue to this day, as such structures are often covered quickly.
POT
Most of the moon’s surface consists of rock debris, a heterogeneous layer that covers rocks, and is made up of dust, dirt, and broken rocks resulting from continued bombardment by small meteorites and other effects.
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Hills with exposed rocks have been seen before, and scientists have explained their existence with evidence that lava created these structures, but the recent study found hills that cannot be explained by ancient volcanic activity, dating back to 4.3 billion. years. It appears to be associated with a newer tectonic activity.
A team from Brown University, led by Adomas Valentinas, used the data from the LRO Diviner tool to identify strange open spots in and around the seas of the moon, the large dark spots on the side of the near moon.
“Blocks exposed on the surface have a relatively short lifespan because debris accumulation occurs continuously,” said Peter Schultz, professor at the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planet Sciences at Brown University and co-author of the study.
From the observations gathered by the researchers, the team found that the 500 newly discovered exposed rocks were perfectly aligned with the ancient cracks in the moon’s crust detected by NASA’s GRAIL mission in 2014.
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“This makes us believe that what we see is a continuous process driven by things happening inside the moon,” said Schultz.
Schultz and Valentinas suggest that what they found was a nearby active tectonic system, or what is called anTS.
The team believes that ANTS may have started billions of years ago when the Moon found a major impact, because debris from the rock generally covers the surface quickly. But the researchers said that activity still continues today, which constantly pushes the hills to rise, break, and leave the bedrock exposed.
Source: Daily Mail
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