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The moon is turning slightly red, and it’s probably Earth’s fault. Our planet’s atmosphere may be causing the moon to rust, new research finds.
Rust, also known as iron oxide, is a reddish compound that forms when iron it is exposed to water and oxygen. Rust is the result of a common chemical reaction in nails, doors, Grand Canyon Red Rocks – and even Mars. The red planet is nicknamed for its reddish hue that comes from the rust it acquired long ago when iron on its surface combined with oxygen and water. according to a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
But not all celestial environments are optimal for oxidation, especially our dry, atmosphereless moon.
“It’s very puzzling,” study lead author Shuai Li, an assistant researcher with the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in the statement. “The Moon is a terrible environment for [rust] to form “.
Related: In photos: India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon
Li was studying data from the JPL Moon Mineralogy Mapper, which was aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter while surveying the moon in 2008, when he realized that the moon’s poles had very different compositions. to the rest.
During its mission, Moon Mineralogy Mapper detected spectra, or wavelengths of light reflected on various surfaces of the moon, to analyze its surface composition. When Li focused on the poles, she discovered that the moon’s polar surfaces had iron-rich rocks with spectral signatures that matched those of hematite. The mineral hematite, commonly found in From the earth surface, is a specific type of iron oxide, or oxide, with the formula Fe2O3.
“At first, I didn’t totally believe it. It shouldn’t exist based on conditions present on the Moon,” co-author Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geoscientist at JPL, said in the statement. “But since we discovered water on the moon, people have been speculating that there might be a greater variety of minerals than we think if the water had reacted with the rocks. “
What the hell happened
In order for iron to turn rusty red, it needs what is called an oxidant, a molecule like oxygen that removes electrons from a material like iron. But the sun’s solar wind, a stream of charged particles that constantly strikes the moon with hydrogen, has the opposite effect. Hydrogen is a reducing agent or a molecule that donates electrons to other molecules. Without protection from this solar wind, like the magnetic field which protects our planet from it, rust should not be able to form on the moon.
But it does, and the key could be our own planet.
The moon does not have an atmosphere of its own to provide sufficient amounts of oxygenbut it has traces of amounts donated by Earth’s atmosphere, according to the statement. This terrestrial oxygen travels to the moon along an elongated stretch of the planet’s magnetic field called the “magnetic tail.”
Earth’s magnetic tail can reach the near side of the moon, where more hematite was found, according to the statement. Also, on each full moon, the magnetic tail blocks 99% of the solar wind from hitting the moon, drawing a temporary curtain on the lunar surface, allowing periods of time for rust to form. But there is still an additional ingredient that is needed for rust to form: water.
The moon is mostly devoid of water, except for frozen water found in the lunar craters on the opposite side of the moon, far from where most of the hematite was found. But the researchers propose that fast-moving dust particles bombarding the moon could release water molecules trapped in the moon’s surface layer, allowing water to mix with iron. These dust particles could even be carrying water molecules, and their impact could create heat that could increase the rate of oxidation, the researchers said.
“This discovery will reshape our knowledge about the polar regions of the Moon,” Li said in a separate paper. statement from the University of Hawaii. “Earth may have played an important role in the evolution of the Moon’s surface.”
However, these are still hypotheses and more data is needed to understand exactly why the moon is rusting. Even more surprising, small amounts of hematite have been found on the opposite side of the moon, which should be too far away for oxygen from Earth to travel on the planet’s magnetic tail, according to the statement.
The findings were published on September 2 in the journal Scientific advances.
Originally posted on Live Science.
