Tag: Lunar geology
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Giant Northern Asteroid Crash May Have Made the Moon Radioactive, New Study Suggests
Revisiting the Moon’s oldest scar A new Nature study led by planetary scientist Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna from the University of Arizona revisits a landmark event in our solar system’s history: the giant impact that created the Moon’s largest basin, the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) basin. This colossal feature stretches about 1,931 kilometres from north to south and…
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Southward Impact Reveals Magma Ocean in Moon’s Pole-Aitken
Overview: A New Clue About the Moon’s Largest Crater For decades, scientists have studied the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, the Moon’s most expansive impact feature. A new study, published in Nature, upends a long-standing assumption about how this colossal crater formed. By analyzing the basin’s asymmetry and the distribution of radioactive materials, researchers argue that…
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Southward Impact Revealed Magma Ocean Clue at Moon’s Largest Crater
Revisiting the Moon’s Biggest Crater The Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin (SPA), the largest known impact feature in our solar system, has long been a subject of fascination for planetary scientists. Recent research digging into the basin’s shape and composition suggests a surprising twist: the basin’s oblong form and the distribution of interior materials point to…
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New Moon Findings Hint SPA Basin Holds Deepest Lunar Secrets
Unveiling the Moon’s Largest Crater The South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin is not just the Moon’s largest impact feature by size; its shape and composition may hold the key to rewriting lunar history. A recent study led by Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna at the University of Arizona argues that the SPA region sits on the downrange rim of…
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Artemis at SPA: Could a Moon Impact Rewrite Our Origin Story?
Introduction: A New Look at an Ancient Moon As NASA’s Artemis program prepares to touch down near the Moon’s south pole, a bold question guides researchers: could the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin hold the deepest clues about the Moon’s origin? A team led by Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna at the University of Arizona argues that SPA sits…
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Massive Moon crater could rewrite the Moon’s origin story
New clues from the Moon’s largest crater A fresh interpretation of the Moon’s oldest giant impact hinges on the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) basin, the largest known impact structure in the solar system. Led by planetary scientist Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna of the University of Arizona, the study argues that the downrange rim of SPA lies near the…
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Moon Mantle Colder on Far Side: New Lunar Study Shifts Our History
New evidence of a colder far side mantle A Chinese-led team has reported a groundbreaking discovery about the Moon: the mantle beneath the far side is colder than the near side. The finding, published in Nature Geoscience on September 30, comes from meticulous analysis of lunar dust samples retrieved by the Chang’e 6 mission, a…
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Cold Moon Mystery: Far Side Mantle Found Colder, Chinese Researchers Report
H2: Breakthrough on the Moon’s hemispheric dichotomy A new study published in Nature Geoscience reports that the Moon’s mantle on the far side is colder than the mantle on the near side. The finding, based on lunar samples from Chang’e 6, offers crucial insights into the Moon’s hemispheric dichotomy—the striking contrast between the near and…