A new study suggests that the moon is much younger than initially thought.
Earth’s natural satellite is 4,425 million years old, about 85 million years younger than 4.51 million, according to researchers from the German Aerospace Center. The new era is based on researchers who reexamine the timeline of when the moon first formed.
Researchers have long believed that the moon formed as a result of a cosmic collision between an Earth that was still forming and another planetoid, commonly known as Theia.
The moon is born. (Credit: Ron Miller)
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“From this, the Moon formed in a short time, probably in a few thousand years,” one of the study’s co-authors, Doris Breuer, Head of the Planetary Physics Department at the DLR Planetary Research Institute, said in a statement. statement.
The researchers also noted that the moon had an ocean of magma.
“This is the first time that the age of the moon can be directly linked to an event that occurred at the end of Earth formation, that is, the formation of the nucleus,” Thorsten Kleine, professor at the Institute of Planetology at the University Münster in Germany, he added in the statement.
Ocean of magma and first rocky crust on the moon. (Credit: NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center)
In an effort to find the 85 million-year gap, the researchers used mathematical models to arrive at the composition of the moon throughout its history, using the ocean of magma as the basis.
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“By comparing the measured composition of the moon’s rocks to the predicted composition of the magma ocean in our model, we were able to trace the ocean’s evolution back to its starting point, the time the moon formed,” said author Sabrina. Schwinger added.
The study has been published in Science Advances.
The moon has been a source of fascination for humanity for eons, and since the mid-20th century Apollo space missions, humanity’s knowledge of our celestial satellite has increased significantly.
Scientists recently discovered that the moon loses water when meteorites hit its surface, according to a study published in March 2019.
NASA’s ARTEMIS mission also revealed that solar winds greatly impact the lunar surface and expose it to radiation from the Sun, leaving scars on the surface, similar to a “sunburn”, due to the moon’s weak magnetic field. .
A separate study published in August 2019 suggested the moon was 100 million years older than previously believed, basing its findings on analysis of the lunar rocks taken by Apollo astronauts.
A study published in January 2019 suggested that Apollo astronauts may have found and excavated a 4.1-billion-year-old piece of land on the Moon.
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