Scientists are still not completely sure how the Moon formed, although many hypotheses have been discussed. Now, new findings about metal deposits in lunar craters could mean that we need to rethink those hypotheses again.
In summary, the findings suggest that there are more metals like iron and titanium in the craters of the Moon than we thought there were, and that could point to a rich reserve of metallic material just below the lunar surface.
The amount of metal held by the Moon compared to Earth is one of the key clues astronomers have when trying to discover how our satellite came into existence. Any adjustments to those readings can tell us more about the origins of the Moon.
Although the most frequent hypothesis has been that the Moon separated from the Earth’s crust as a result of a massive collision with a third body, the crust of our planet has less iron oxide than the Moon, something that scientists have been trying to explain for some time.
This new research suggests that there is even more metallic material lurking just below the lunar surface, which would be pointless if it had broken away from the relatively metal-poor Earth’s crust. That casts doubt on the preferred origin story.
“It really raises the question of what this means for our earlier training hypotheses,” says space scientist Essam Heggy of the University of Southern California.
“By improving our understanding of how much metal the Moon’s subsoil actually has, scientists can limit ambiguities about how it has formed, how it is evolving, and how it is helping to maintain livability on Earth.”
The latest study is the result of radar readings from the miniature radio frequency (Mini-RF) instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the Moon.
In the course of the ice hunt, Mini-RF was busy measuring the dielectric constant, an electrical property of the lunar soil within the craters, when the researchers noticed that the level increased as the craters got larger, down to craters. 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in diameter. In even larger craters, the dielectric constant stabilized.
Follow-up analysis using data from other instruments and spacecraft confirmed that the larger craters contained more metal, possibly because they dig deeper into the Moon’s surface. This suggests that below the surface, which is relatively metal-free, there is much more to find.
“This exciting Mini-RF result shows that even after 11 years of operation on the Moon, we are still making new discoveries about the ancient history of our closest neighbor,” says planetary scientist Noah Petro of the Goddard Space Flight Center. from NASA.
“Mini-RF data is incredibly valuable in telling us about the properties of the lunar surface, but we use that data to infer what was happening more than 4.5 billion years ago!”
Of course, there is still a lot of uncertainty when it comes to looking back that far and trying to solve the complexity of how the Moon first fell into Earth’s orbit. Research is already underway to determine if this link between more metal and larger craters is also valid in the Moon’s southern hemisphere.
It is possible that the Moon was created from much deeper material within Earth than previously thought, or that these additional metals are the result of a molten lunar surface that gradually cools.
There are very few potential possibilities and many questions remain, but publishing findings like this helps to clear up some of the unknowns about the Moon and where it comes from, which should lead to better hypotheses in the future. That applies to other moons in the Solar System as well as ours.
“Our Solar System alone has more than 200 moons; understanding the crucial role these moons play in the formation and evolution of the orbiting planets can give us a deeper insight into how and where life conditions might form outside the planet. Earth and what it would look like. ” Heggy says.
The research has been published in Letters of Earth and Planetary Science.
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