Scientists discovered: The Moon is shrinking

The moon is shrinking, creating surface folds and earthquakes - that is the conclusion published by the scientific community in Nature Geoscience on May 13 , after analyzing satellite images. Lunar Explorer (LRO) sent by the US Aeronautics Agency.

The study was carried out with more than 12,000 satellite images showing the Mare Frigoris area near the North Pole of the Moon - one of the many large areas believed to be "dead" from a geological perspective - was cracked and moved.

The moon looks from Los Angeles, USA, March 20, 2019.(Photo: AFP / VNA).

Unlike the Earth, the Moon does not have tectonic plates. Instead, tectonic activity of the Moon takes place when the object loses its heat since it was formed 4.5 billion years ago. This causes the surface of the Moon to shrink and form many wrinkles , like the phenomenon of dried-up grapes.

Because the crust of the Moon is crunchy, these forces force the Moon's surface to crumble as the interior shrinks, leading to the formation of so-called fractures . According to the scientific world, the Moon has shrunk to about 50 meters in the past few hundred million years.

Astronauts in the US Apollo program began measuring seismic activity on the Moon in the 60s and 70s of the last century, discovering that most seismic activity occurred deep inside the Moon, while only There is little activity recorded on the surface of the 5th largest satellite in this solar system.