Asteroids 'dumped water into molten Moon'

Discuss celestial objects and phenomena outside the Earth's atmosphere, Earth-launched satellites and exploratory missions, etc....

Moderators: kiore, Blip, The_Metatron

Asteroids 'dumped water into molten Moon'

#1  Postby DougC » Jun 01, 2016 1:13 am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36416880

B.B.C. Article
A smattering of water is buried deep inside the Moon and it arrived during the satellite's very early history, a new study concludes, when asteroids plunged into its churning magma oceans.
How and when water got trapped in volcanic lunar rocks is a huge and open question for planetary scientists.
This international team has compared the chemistry of Apollo mission samples with various types of space rock.
They say that icy, early asteroids were the likely source of most of the water.
After such impacts the Moon's developing crust could have trapped the water in the cooling magma.
Much later, volcanic activity spewed some of that magma back onto the surface and, much later again, a precious few of those volcanic rocks were bagged by Apollo astronauts.

(Continues)
To do, is to be (Socrate)
To be, is to do (Sartre)
Do be do be do (Sinatra)
SUBWAY(1985)
DougC
THREAD STARTER
 
Posts: 14920
Age: 51
Male

Country: UNITED Kingdom
United Kingdom (uk)
Print view this post

Return to Astronomy & Space Science

Who is online

Users viewing this topic: No registered users and 1 guest