Posted on 10/24/2023 10:39:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Scientists now believe the moon could actually be around 40 million years older than initially believed, according to new research.
The finding comes after a group of researchers reexamined a collection of dust collected from the lunar surface and brought back to Earth in 1972, the last time astronauts visited the moon.
Scientists took an in-depth look at crystals embedded within the dust, which was returned to Earth as part of NASA's Apollo 17 mission.
Researchers believe a massive collision of debris with Earth led to the creation of the moon. That impact took place around 100 million years after the solar system's formation and led to a large concentration of material being propelled into the atmosphere, creating our planet's moon.
Initially molten hot, the energy from the collision cooled, allowing scientists to measure and calculate age based on analysis of the crystals in the lunar dust.
"Because we know how old these crystals are, they serve as an anchor for the lunar chronology," study co-author and University of Chicago professor Philipp Heck said in a statement.
The moon was initially thought to be around 4.42 billion years old.
Research, which also involved the University of Glasgow, now puts that age at approximately 4.46 billion years.
"These findings require pushing the timing of the solidification of the lunar crust to within at least the first 100 Myr of the formation of the solar system and provide a minimum age for the Giant Impact event that formed the Earth-Moon system," the study's authors wrote in their findings, published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.
"This age pushes back the age of the first preserved lunar crust by ∼40 [million years] and provides a minimum formation age for the moon within 110 [million years] after the formation of the solar system."
Through its Artemis Program, NASA hopes to return a team of astronauts to the moon in 2025.
Wow. That really changes my worldview and how I intend to spend the remaining days of my life.
</sarcasm>
Hillary’s gynecologists said the same thing.
This changes everything!
They made a mistake when they said it was 4,420,000,000 years old...
Some us were sure it was at least 4,465,000,000 years and 6 minutes and 31 seconds old...
Now they’ve almost got it correct at 4,460,000,000 years old...
Eventually they will get it absolutely correct...
> Research, which also involved the University of Glasgow, now puts that age at approximately 4.46 billion years. <
Just my luck. I had 4.47 billion years in the office pool.
Lol. It’s all conjecture. Or just a rounding error.
Appearance of patches of green mold?
Wow, the Moon looks young for its age. I would have guessed not a day over 4 billion.
A point of interest, the moon’s age, but is it really worth spending lots of grant dollars to find out?
The science is settled.
We have consensus...................
Moldy green cheese alert!
I don’t mind if they change their thinking on things like the age of moon, age of the universe, or certain things about evolution. The attitude is always “We’ve learned more, and now we believe this”. Fine.
But I don’t think they can play that particular game and also try to shout people down for
“questioning the science”. About COVID. About Climate Change. And evolution. Hey, quite often the scientists DON’T know what they’re talking about. But they hate it when you show a bit of doubt about their latest pronouncement.
Don’t be too hasty.
These samples of moon dust were collected from a fairly small area.
The moon is much denser on one side as compared to the other.
I have considered this to be evidence for the Giant Impact event as a glancing blow that preserved a large portion of the impacting object that formed nucleus of the moon.
This nucleus may be much older than the post impact part of the moon.
The denser part of the moon would because of gravitational attraction be the part of the moon that would be tidally locked to Earth.
The Earth facing part of the moon is where the moon landings took place so that the astronauts could remain in contact with Earth.
Until the study looks at samples from the far side of the moon I think they should refrain from making revisions to the age of the moon.
Almost my age 😂
40 million years is more than a rounding error.
Remember that next time somebody says to follow the science.
It might be worth millions of grant dollars to find out how old the moon is but in this case they are paid to estimate something slightly different than the previous estimate and which is still far from any certainty. I still believe that most things that say “scientists” actually refer to graduate students and most conjectures called a “study” are basically term papers. Proof of this is that they are only mentioned once.
These scientists must work for the Treasury Department..............
They’re 40 million years off, but...
They can tell us when the temperature is gonna be too hot to sustain life on Earf.
40 million years, an eyeblink in cosmological time. What we know for fairly certain is that the moon was created sometime between the initial formation of the earth about 4.5 billion years ago and the late heavy bombardment about 4.1 billion years ago.
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