* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Moon geology

Blobrana · L

The Moon Is Not Dead: Geologic Activity Recently Monitored

High resolution imagery provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has shown that small valleys in some parts of the moon are slowly forming. This suggests that the moon's crust is expanding is some areas.

Blobrana · L

Magnetised Moon Rock Points to Lunar Core's Active Past

A new study of a lunar rock scooped up by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their Apollo 11 mission indicates that the ancient moon long sustained a dynamo - a convecting fluid core, much like Earth's, that produces a global magnetic field. The age of the rock implies that the lunar dynamo was still going some 3.7 billion years ago, about 800 million years after the moon's formation.
That is longer than would be expected if the lunar dynamo were powered primarily by the natural churning of a cooling molten interior, as is the case on Earth.
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Subtly Shaded Map of Moon Reveals Titanium Treasure Troves

A map of the Moon combining observations in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths shows a treasure trove of areas rich in Titanium ores. Not only is Titanium a valuable mineral, it is key to helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the Moon's interior. Mark Robinson and Brett Denevi will be presenting the results from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission today at the joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences.
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Blobrana · L

Lunar rocks haven't come just from NASA missions. Small moon chunks have fallen to Earth for billions of years, blasted off during asteroid collisions. They are preserved in arid climates, where water can't erode them.
Randy Korotev's career of studying moon rocks took him to the deserts of Antarctica, where scientists have discovered most lunar meteorites.
The study of meteorites and lunar samples has helped provide a clearer picture of events on Earth billions of years ago.
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NASA Research Team Reveals Moon Has Earth-Like Core

Uncovering details about the lunar core is critical for developing accurate models of the moon's formation. The data sheds light on the evolution of a lunar dynamo - a natural process by which our moon may have generated and maintained its own strong magnetic field.
The team's findings suggest the moon possesses a solid, iron-rich inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a fluid, primarily liquid-iron outer core with a radius of roughly 205 miles. Where it differs from Earth is a partially molten boundary layer around the core estimated to have a radius of nearly 300 miles. The research indicates the core contains a small percentage of light elements such as sulphur, echoing new seismology research on Earth that suggests the presence of light elements - such as sulphur and oxygen - in a layer around our own core.
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Blobrana · L

Deep interior of moon resembles Earth's core

The Moon, Earth's closest neighbour, has long been studied to help us better understand our own planet. Of particular interest is the lunar interior, which could hold clues to its ancient origins. In an attempt to extract information on the very deep interior of the Moon, a team of NASA-led researchers applied new technology to old data. Apollo seismic data was reanalysed using modern methodologies and detected what many scientists have predicted: the Moon has a core.

According to the team's findings, published Jan. 6 in the online edition of Science, the Moon possesses an iron-rich core with a solid inner ball nearly 150 miles in radius, and a 55-mile thick outer fluid shell.

Blobrana · L

Scientists at Stony Brook University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found new evidence that the moon is more geologically complex than previously thought.
Using data from an instrument called the Diviner Lunar Radiometer, they discovered materials abnormally rich in silica in the moon's crustal highlands in five distinct regions.
Dr. Timothy Glotch, assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook and lead author of one of two papers on the research in a recent issue of Science, said scientists knew for decades that the moon's crustal highlands were different from other regions, but couldn't determine why. Now, he said, they have the evidence, which will lead to refined ideas about the moon's formation.
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New images show recent faulting and shrinkage of the moon

If you're on the moon, watch your step. The lunar surface has clifflike formations called scarps that, according to a team that includes Cornell scientists, may have formed recently -- at least relative to the moon's history.
Using NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the researchers have taken the highest-resolution pictures to date of the moon, revealing previously undetected faults, or planar fractures, in all sectors of its surface. The pictures indicate a "young" age of these scarp formations, suggesting the moon's surface contracted within the last 1 billion years, and possibly more recently than that.
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'Blue moon' - with twice as much water as believed

Scientists have discovered that the Moon has a much higher water content than was previously suspected.
The first evidence of water on the surface of Earth's nearest neighbour was uncovered two years ago when traces were found in tiny beads of volcanic glass collected from Apollo missions.
Then, in September last year, data from three orbiting satellites detected further traces of water and hydroxyl - a hydrogen atom linked to a single oxygen atom on the Moon's surface.
But new research by American scientists, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has revealed that the quantities of water detected in the Apollo samples were double the levels found in previous analysis.
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