Moon Has Iron Core, Lunar-Rock Study Says

National Geographic News ^ | January 11, 2007 | Brian Handwerk

[SunkenCiv]

Deep down, the moon may be more like Earth than scientists ever thought. A new moon-rock study suggests the satellite has an iron core... The moon's core could be a clue to its ancient origins, which have long puzzled astronomers. "Our moon is too big to be a moon," Taylor said. "It's huge compared to the moons we see around other planets, so it has always been suspected that there was something strange in its origin." ...Rock samples from NASA's Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 moon missions of the early 1970s have now shed more light on the moon's origins, according to Taylor and colleagues' study, to be published in the tomorrow's issue of the journal Science. The group studied a type of lunar rock called mare basalt, which is believed to have been created deep in the moon's mantle and have retained signatures of that region. Mare basalt hails from vast, dark, flat areas of the moon's surface called mares. It is dense, dark gray, and likely formed from cooled magma. The moon rocks suggest that the lunar mantle is very low in elements that bond easily with iron, such as gold and platinum -- like Earth's mantle, but with even lower levels of those elements... "We must have had a core form [in the moon] to have [iron bonding] elements at the [low] levels we see now," Taylor said. "That's the same thing that happened on Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury -- the terrestrial planets."

[LiberConservative]

"Big whack"

I got a few of those from my dad when I was a kid.

[SunkenCiv]

sudbury impact

Google

[SunkenCiv]

:’) And yet...

“during the 200-million-year period of the late heavy bombardment, Earth suffered over 22,000 impact craters larger than 20 km, about 40 impact basins larger than 1,000 km, and several continent-sized, 5,000-km basins.”

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/late_heavy_bombardment.html

[SunkenCiv]

lunar core

Google

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks.

[RedMonqey]

New evidence for the Moon’s soft middle

Which brings up the question:

How many licks does it take to get to the mantle (tootsie roll) center of the moon ?

[quadrant]

As I understand it the moon acts as a magnet; that is, its size and composition “magnet” attracting meteors that otherwise would crash into the earth.

[SunkenCiv]

Depends on the size of the tongue, and whether or not it’s a tongue of flame from an impact. :’)

[RedMonqey]

HeeHee. I suppose so.....

[SunkenCiv]

It doesn’t.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Imagine if all those impact craters visible on the surface of the moon were on the surface of the Earth.

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If earth had no air, water, or tectonic action, there would be just as many craters.

[SunkenCiv]

an update of sorts, courtesy of Fred Nerks:

new gravity map of the Earth