What is the history of the early history of our moon? Despite everything we know about our closest natural satellites, scientists still find out parts of its history. New measurements of rocks collected during Apollo missions now show that it was solidified around 4.43 billion years ago. It turns out that it is about the time when the earth became an habitable world.
The scientist of the University of Chicago, Nicolas Dauphas, and a team of researchers carried out the measurements. They looked at various proportions of elements in moon rock. They offer a window in the early epochs of the moon. After a collision between two early solar system bodies, it began as a fully melted blob.
While it cooled and crystallized, the melted proto moon separated in layers. After all, about 99% of the moon magma Ocean had solidified. The rest was a unique residual fluid called Kreep. This acronym stands for the elements potassium (K), rare elements (ree) and phosphorus (P).
Dauphas and his team analyzed this Kreep and found that it formed about 140 million years after the birth of the solar system. It is hoped in the Apollo rocks and scientists to find it in rehearsals from the South Pole-Aitken basin. This is the region in which Artemis astronauts will be researched at some point. When the analysis is confirmed there, it shows a even distribution of this Kreep layer over the lunar surface.
Understand Kreeps story on the moon
The references to the ultimate “cooling period” of the moon are in a weakly radioactive rare genre called “Lutium”. In the course of time it expires to become harassium. In the early solar system, all rocks had about the same amounts of Lutium. His decay process determines the age of the rocks in which it exists.
However, the consolidation of the moon and the subsequent formation of Kreep reservoir did not lead too much luty compared to other rocks that were created at the same time. The scientists therefore wanted to measure the shares of Lutium and Hafnium in moon rock and compare them with other bodies that were created at about the same time – as meteorites. This would enable them to calculate a more precise time for the Kreep formed on the moon.
They tested tiny samples from moon rocks and looked at the ratio of hafnium in embedded lunar circus. With this analysis, they found that the stone age corresponds to the formation in a CREEEP-rich reservoir. The age groups agree with the formation of Kreep reservoirs about 140 million years after the birth of the solar system or around 4.43 billion years ago. “We took years to develop these techniques, but we have received a very precise answer to a question that has been controversial for a long time,” said Dauphas.
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Interestingly, the results of the team showed that the crystallization of the Mondmagma Ocean occurred, while remaining planeted embryos and planetesimal bombed the moon. These objects were the birth of the planets and the moon, which began after the sun was around 4.6 billion years ago. What remained from the formation of the planets continued to beat the already shaped planets.
The formation of the moon itself began about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system. The most likely event was the collision of a Mars -sized world named Theia with the child's earth. The melted debris sent into space and began to merge to make the moon. “We have to imagine that a big ball from magma hovers around the earth in the room,” said Dauphas. Shortly afterwards this ball began to cool off. This process finally led to the formation of the Mondkreep layers.
The conception of an artist from the cooling lunar magma -Ozean. With the kind permission of ESA.
The investigation of the expiry of Lutium in Hafnium in rehearsals of these Kreep rocks is a big step forward to understand the oldest era in lunar history. Other rock samples that have been brought back from the South Pole-Ait basin will help fill the remaining blanks and to clarify the researchers both the timeline of the cooling of the moon rock and the subsequent creation of such rock deposits such as the mare bastes. These layers of rock were created when impactors hit the moon surface and produced lava flows that filled the impact pool.
Due to effects, the mare formed later in the early history of the moon, about 240 million years after the birth of solar system formation. These effects stimulate lava flows, which covered less than 20 percent of the lunar surface and devoured the oldest surfaces.
Timing is everything
If we fix the dating of the moon cooling, not only the history of the moon, but also the development of the earth will be understood. This is because the effects that formed the moon were probably the last big influence on earth. It could mark a time when the earth has started its transformation into a stable world. This is an important step to develop into a place that is hospitable for life.
“This statement corresponds well to others – it is a great place where we can prepare for more knowledge about the moon from the Chang'e and Artemis missions,” said Dauphas. “We have a number of other questions that are waiting to be answered.”
More information
Moon rocks help scientists to determine when the moon has been crystallized
Completion of the consolidation of the Mondmagma Ocean at 4.43 GA
Moon formation
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