Tweet
Blasts of gas from deep beneath the lunar surface are giving the Moon a surprisingly fresh-faced look, suggests a new study. If they are, our picture of the Moon’s geological past will have to change just as dramatically.
The Moon was thought to be geologically inactive. The last volcanoes erupted on it nearly a billion years ago and meteor impacts were believed to be the only thing that could change its surface today. That belief is set to change.
Peter Schultz of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, US, and colleagues studied images from the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, along with spectrographic readings from more recent space probes.
The team focused on the Ina structure, an unusual-looking area nearly 3 kilometres in diameter near the Moon’s equator. It has fewer craters, sharper topography and is far brighter than the surrounding surface. This freshness suggests it has not suffered many major impacts or much "space weathering" by solar wind and microscopic meteors, which can dull and blunt surface features.
The structure is one of four bare spots – each at the intersection of older seismic faults – that the researchers found on the near side of the Moon, which faces Earth.
Lunar acne
“When we look at the Moon in the northern hemisphere, these are tiny blemishes on the nose of the man on the Moon. It’s kind of like acne,†says Schultz.
While the current study did not search for gas emissions, NASA's recent Lunar Prospector mission did find small amounts of radon and polonium gas on the Moon’s surface. These are thought to accompany larger volumes of other gases, such as carbon dioxide, that are often associated with volcanic activity.
Indeed, recent studies of Moonquakes – weak seismic events thought to be caused by Earth's gravitational pull – suggest that a small amount of molten material may still exist deep within the Moon.
Jeffrey Taylor of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, who was not a member of the study, says the gas could come from the remaining magma.
>
The Moon was thought to be geologically inactive. The last volcanoes erupted on it nearly a billion years ago and meteor impacts were believed to be the only thing that could change its surface today. That belief is set to change.
Peter Schultz of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, US, and colleagues studied images from the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, along with spectrographic readings from more recent space probes.
The team focused on the Ina structure, an unusual-looking area nearly 3 kilometres in diameter near the Moon’s equator. It has fewer craters, sharper topography and is far brighter than the surrounding surface. This freshness suggests it has not suffered many major impacts or much "space weathering" by solar wind and microscopic meteors, which can dull and blunt surface features.
The structure is one of four bare spots – each at the intersection of older seismic faults – that the researchers found on the near side of the Moon, which faces Earth.
Lunar acne
“When we look at the Moon in the northern hemisphere, these are tiny blemishes on the nose of the man on the Moon. It’s kind of like acne,†says Schultz.
While the current study did not search for gas emissions, NASA's recent Lunar Prospector mission did find small amounts of radon and polonium gas on the Moon’s surface. These are thought to accompany larger volumes of other gases, such as carbon dioxide, that are often associated with volcanic activity.
Indeed, recent studies of Moonquakes – weak seismic events thought to be caused by Earth's gravitational pull – suggest that a small amount of molten material may still exist deep within the Moon.
Jeffrey Taylor of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, who was not a member of the study, says the gas could come from the remaining magma.
>
