Earth’s Pull Found To Be Influencing Surface Features On The Moon
- 9 years ago
The moon is shrinking, and scientists were surprised to recently learn that the Earth’s pull is influencing how some aspects of the process are happening.
The moon is shrinking and scientists recently learned the Earth’s pull is influencing how parts of this process are happening.
Years ago, researchers observed scarps, or faults, indicating that as the moon advanced in age over the eons, the lunar core cooled and the watery layer beneath the surface solidified.
The process resulted in the body contracting, and as the shrinkage occurred the breaks appeared on the crust.
This chain of events should result in randomly oriented cracks, but based on images of thousands of scarps taken not long ago by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, they have not.
A senior scientist with the Smithsonian
The moon is shrinking and scientists recently learned the Earth’s pull is influencing how parts of this process are happening.
Years ago, researchers observed scarps, or faults, indicating that as the moon advanced in age over the eons, the lunar core cooled and the watery layer beneath the surface solidified.
The process resulted in the body contracting, and as the shrinkage occurred the breaks appeared on the crust.
This chain of events should result in randomly oriented cracks, but based on images of thousands of scarps taken not long ago by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, they have not.
A senior scientist with the Smithsonian