Probe finds 'strange' thing on the back of the Moon, experts step in and successfully decode it

The moon is not a very big planet, why can it contain such a large amount of this? This question has made scientists determined to find an answer.

The Moon is the only natural satellite of the Earth. The Moon revolves around the Earth once in 29.5 days. The size of the Moon is about 27% the size of the Earth. Gravity on the Moon is only about 1/6 of that on Earth.

The Moon has accompanied the Earth for more than 4.5 billion years. The existence of the Moon has a great influence on the Earth. Without the presence of the Moon, the Earth will experience many great changes.

The Moon is an indispensable natural satellite of the Earth.

For example, the amount of tides will be less, the axis of the Earth will change, the climate will change greatly, the night sky will be much darker, the Earth will rotate faster, and solar and lunar eclipses will not exist. At present, animals that depend on the lunar cycle will perish… All this shows how important the Moon is to the Earth.

The moon is the satellite of the Earth, so since ancient times people have observed this celestial body. As early as the 60s, many countries were looking for ways to survey the Moon. July 20, 1969 was the moment in human history when astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon. Followed by many other astronauts who went to the Moon to probe and lift the "curtain of mystery" of this planet. And a lot of strange things have been found on the Moon.

Unravel the "curtain of mystery" of the Moon

One of them is the discovery of the lunar rover - Chang'e 4 of the National Space Administration of China. The Chang'e 4 spacecraft entered the Moon's orbit on December 12, 2018. The landing took place on January 3, 2019. The purpose of this trip was to determine the age and composition at unexplored regions of the Moon. Chang'e 4 was the first spacecraft to land on the back of the Moon.

The place where Chang'e 4 landed was in a crater of the Moon named Von Kármán. Von Kármán is located in the southern hemisphere on the invisible side of the Moon that has not been explored before by human ships. Specifically, this area is in the area that is always obscured by the Moon, which only faces one side to the left.

Von Kármán crater.

This crater has a diameter of about 180 km and it is located in the South Pole area - the Aitken basin has a large diameter of 2,500 km, 13 km deep. According to the Guardian, this is the oldest, largest and deepest crater on the surface of the Moon.

Many studies have demonstrated that the Aitken Basin was formed after a very large celestial collision in the early period after the formation of the Moon. After this impact, much of the material from the depths of the Moon was pushed up to the surface layer.

From a study once published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Chinese scientists have hoped through this expedition to discover more "secrets" of the Moon. According to that study, researcher Peter B. James and his team (from Baylor University) analyzed the changes in gravity around the Moon and discovered a metal mass lying in the middle of the Moon. below its surface.

Close-up of a crater on the Moon.

The team combined data from comparative topographic maps of the Moon with data collected from NASA's Lunar Gravitational and Structure Research Program (GRAIL). According to the researchers, the anomaly of the Aitken Basin can be precisely explained by a large amount of metal at a depth of several hundred kilometers.

Since then, they've come up with two hypotheses, first, they've built mathematical models that suggest the remains of a super-heavy iron and nickel asteroid may still exist under the Moon's crust. The second hypothesis is that the core of the Moon in this region contains dense anomalous matter.

Researcher Peter B. James said: "We think that deep under the Aitken Basin is a metal deposit 5 times larger than the island of Hawaii. Although this mine is very large, but because it is located on the dark side of the Moon, so We are very hard to see from Earth. I also believe that one of the best laboratories for studying the Moon is the crater Von Kármán."

The Chang Nga 4 spacecraft has found some astronomical information that we have not verified before.

What is more surprising is that in this crater, the Chang'e 4 probe has found some astronomical information that we have not been able to prove before. Beneath the Von Kármán crater is a huge metal deposit that exists at depths of up to 290km. The volume of this metal mine is up to 22 million tons. It's not uncommon to have metal inside a planet, but the Moon isn't that big of a planet, why does it have such large reserves of metal?

The metal deposits hidden in the Aitken Basin are mainly iron and nickel, the core components of most celestial bodies in the Solar System. In the primordial solar nebula, iron and nickel are two relatively high-mass elements. As iron and nickel become part of celestial bodies, they slowly sink to the central core due to their high density. The Earth's core is a huge sphere of iron-nickel alloy, 3,400 km thick, and its mass is equivalent to one-third of the Earth's total.

Looking for the origin of the metal mine

Based on the mathematical model of Peter B. James and his research team, experts believe that the formation of this metal deposit really came from the collision of the giant meteorite with the Earth before. .

The planet that collided with Earth about 4.6 billion years ago is called Theia. Scientists think that the Moon was born from this collision. The planet is thought to be smaller than the Earth at the time and about the same size and mass as Mars. Its orbit was initially stable, but after the Earth gathered more surrounding matter, Theia's orbit became unstable. It eventually collided with the Earth at a low and diagonal angle.

4.6 billion years ago Earth collided with the planet Theia. (Photo: Baidu)

Its slow speed and small angle are not enough for it to destroy the Earth, but a large percentage of its shell is fired. The heavy particles from Theia sank deep into the Earth's crust, while the rest and ejected matter gathered into a single object over the course of several weeks. Under the influence of its own gravity, perhaps in a year, it becomes a spherical object: the Moon. The collision is also thought to have altered the Earth's axis, tilting it 23.5°, the tilting axis that causes seasons on the Earth. And it also increased the Earth's rotation speed and started plate tectonics.

Erik Asphaug, a professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) said that the Moon formed from ejected dust rock that entered Earth's orbit. However, two researchers, Alfred GW Cameron and William Ward, think that the Moon was also formed by a tangential collision with an object the size of Mars. However, the outer silicate layer of the colliding objects has mostly evaporated, leaving behind a metal core. Therefore, most of the matter ejected into orbit will consist of silicates, which make the Moon lacking iron when condensing.

Evidence of this collision scenario has been collected by a team led by NASA from Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts more than 50 years ago.

Six sites were directly sampled from the Apollo Program manned landings from 1969 to 1972, which brought back to Earth 380.96 kg of Moon rock and lunar soil. In addition, three robotic Luna Soviet spacecraft brought back another 326 grams between 1970 and 1976. The composition of the Moon they discovered revealed Theia's properties.

The result of the collision was the formation of the Moon. (Photo: Baidu)

According to The CS Monitor, the Moon's crust is made of 43% oxygen, 20% silicon, 19% magnesium, 10% iron, 3% calcium and 3% aluminum. The Moon's core is thought to be composed of iron, sulfur, and nickel, with the largest middle layer, or mantle, consisting of olivine, clinopyroxene, and orthopyroxene.

The Moon's core makes up about 2% of the Moon's entire mass and is partially molten. The Moon's surface layer also has trace amounts of 0.42% chromium, 0.18% titanium, 0.12% manganese, potassium, uranium, thorium, hydrogen and several other elements. All of these elements form a mantle known as regolith. Mafic plutonic and maria basalt are two types of rock found in regolith. Both are igneous rocks, formed from cooling lava.

Meanwhile, British scientists in a statement in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of the Royal Astronomical Society said that they have indeed found the composition of the Moon from fragments of the Moon. The resulting debris of the Earth collided with Theia. Among the debris of the collision, the scientists found a mass of self-gravitational material, roughly the size of the Moon, containing nearly 1% of the same iron as the Moon.

In the future, humanity will use the Moon as a place to exploit resources.

Thus, thanks to the help of scientific tools, the birth history of the Earth, Moon, other celestial bodies as well as their secrets are gradually exposed. Not only rare metals, the Moon is also a source of many other materials such as Silicon, rare earths, titanium, aluminum, water, Helium 3 isotope. In addition, the construction of lunar mines also helps to Humanity has a place to make a base, a stop or a refueling point for spaceships to continue to conquer other planets.

Currently, the Moon has become a piece of cake that many big countries want to share. Many billionaires and owners of private space companies have approached NASA to "acquire" the Moon such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, billionaire Elon Musk - SpaceX boss. Even the European Space Agency plans to exploit resources on the Moon from 2025. So it is very likely that in just a few years, we will be able to use many materials taken from the Moon. about to put into production or refine.