NASA - Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) patch.
May 5, 2020
Bernese (University of Bern, Switzerland) and American researchers observed on the visible face of the Moon mountain ridges emitting a lot of heat.
Bernese and American researchers have highlighted traces of tectonic activity which would be the consequence of a gigantic impact which occurred 4.3 billion years ago.
The Moon is not a dead star as one might suppose. Bernese and American researchers have highlighted traces of recent tectonic activity which would be the consequence of a gigantic impact which occurred 4.3 billion years ago.
A doctoral student at the University of Bern, Adomas Valantinas carried out this work during a stay at Brown University (USA), using in particular data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe.
The researcher observed on the visible face of the Moon mountain ridges with portions of basalt rocks freshly exposed. These rocky areas release more heat during the lunar night than the surrounding dusty surface, so that they can be detected by the Diviner instrument on board the LRO probe which measures the temperature on the surface of the Moon.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
Diviner's nocturnal readings revealed more than 500 spots of this type. With Peter Schultz of Brown University, Adomas Valantinas mapped these mountain ridges and found an almost perfect correlation with old cracks in the lunar crust discovered by NASA's GRAIL mission in 2014.
Magma channels
These cracks became channels in which magma flowed which formed deep grooves. In their study published in the journal Geology, the researchers suggest that the mountain ridges overlooking these gorges are always in an upward movement, which explains the recently exposed rocks.
Magma channels
According to them, it is possible that the phenomenon is still in progress, because on the Moon, everything is quickly covered with a dust called regolith resulting from the impacts of meteorites. According to Professor Schultz, quoted Tuesday in a press release from the University of Bern, these movements are the consequence of a gigantic impact on the hidden face of the Moon 4.3 billion years ago.
"When we return to the Moon, these places with bare boulders will be of great importance, samples will be able to give us a lot of new information," concludes Adomas Valantinas.
Related links:
University of Bern: https://www.unibe.ch/index_eng.html
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html
Images, Animation, Text, Credits: ATS/NASA/LRO/University of Bern/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
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