|
In a surprising revision to earlier theories, researchers report that a massive feature on the moon formed due to lunar rifts. Scientists had previously thought the Ocean of Storms, also known as Oceanus Procellarum, was created by a giant cosmic impact that ...
|
NASA/COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES/MIT/JPL/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
'Strikingly Geometric' Rifts Upturn Theories of Moon's Formation
In a surprising revision to earlier theories, researchers report that a massive feature on the moon formed due to lunar rifts.
Scientists had previously thought the Ocean of Storms, also known as Oceanus Procellarum, was created by a giant cosmic impact that left a crater about 2,000 miles wide (3,200 kilometers). But readings fromNASA's GRAIL mission reveal that the feature is not round. Instead, it's surrounded by a strange giant rectangle beneath the surface.
This suggests the Ocean of Storms was not caused by a meteor strike, but formed as the moon's surface rifted apart.
KOPERNIK OBSERVATORY/NASA/COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES/MIT/JPL/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
"As a solid cools and contracts, fractures and faults can form, and these fractures will commonly take on a polygonal pattern," lead study author Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna of the Colorado School of Mines explained. On the moon, these ancient rift zones took on a rectangular shape.
"The observed pattern of gravity anomalies on the moon is so strikingly geometric and in such an unexpected shape that it is forcing us to think in new and different ways about the processes operating on the moon and planets in general," Andrews-Hanna said.
The research is detailed in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
—Charles Q. Choi, Space.com
This is a condensed version of a report from Space.com. Read the full report. Follow Space.com on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
- How the Moon Formed: 5 Wild Lunar Theories
- 10 Coolest Moon Discoveries
- Moon Master: An Easy Quiz for Lunatics
- end quote from:
'Strikingly Geometric' Rifts Upturn Theories of Moon's Formation
- What if the moon is actually a piece of the asteroid belt planet that the Soviet Union discovered was blown up by a nuclear war from a probe they sent there during the 1970s.
I'm thinking that this happened around 60 million years ago when the asteroid (likely from the same planet blowing up) hit the gulf of Mexico and killed all the larger land dinosaurs. The moon could be another asteroid from the blown up planet that either hit earth too or stayed somehow in earth's orbit.
No comments:
Post a Comment