In the late 50s and 60s.space missions of the time Americans and Sovietshowed the world that our natural satellite, Moon, has two distinct faces. The visible is covered by what they call “lunar seas, are labeled as dark spots and show lava flows. In the occult phase, these seas do not exist.

Thanks to a recent study in USan idea has been proposed to explain this event: colossal impact that happened billions of years ago may be the reason for these differences.

(The study examines an ancient collision at the Moon’s South Pole that may have been responsible for changing convection patterns within the moon/ Credits: brown.edu)

AT BBC interview, astrophysicist from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC)Jose Maria Madedo, approves;

“The biggest differences between the visible face and the hidden face of the moon are related to the appearance and chemical composition of these lunar regions. On the visible face there are many large areas covered with solidified lava, called mares. However, there are very few of these seas from the hidden side.

For example, on the visible edge there are higher concentrations of potassium, titanium, thorium, phosphorus and other elements of the so-called rare earth group.

All this shows that throughout its evolution, the Moon must have suffered from some phenomenon that could give rise to these differences.

call”South Pole-Aitken Basin” is a large (impact) crater that can be found at the south pole of a natural satellite and has a diameter 2.5 thousand kilometerswith one depth 12 kilometersand is one of the largest impact structures detected to date using our spaceborne technology.

More about lava flows

(Illustration with the Moon after its initial formation, with an ocean of magma and formation of rocky crust / loans: planetary.org/NASA Goddard)

Influence studied, which created the pool, would create a cloud of heat that spread through the bowels of the moon. As the cloud continued to expand, it would drag the rare earth elements to the other side of the moon, and an excess of these heat-producing elements would be part of the process that created the lava flows as we know them today.

Matt Joneslead author of the study and doctoral candidate in brown universityHe speaks:

“We know that big impacts like the one that formed SPA will generate a lot of heat (…) The question is how this heat affects the internal dynamics of the Moon. What we show is that under any possible conditions, during the formation of the SPA, these fuel elements end up concentrated on the near side (…). surface. “.

Other facts about the moon

like PKT (Procellarum KREEP Terrain, the concentration of potassium, rare earths and phosphorus, as well as thorium) formed on the near side of the Moon is another aspect being studied. If this collision is one of the strongest ever detected in our solar system, PKT is also considered the second most interesting topic for researchers in brown university.

NASA begins studying lunar samples collected in the 1970s
The material was collected in 1972, but only now scientists have the technology to fully analyze it.

The mentioned concentration is around and inside the largest volcanic plain of this region, known as Ocean Procellarum. Scientists have computer modeled how the heat generated by impact can change the nature of convection inside the moon and how this can cause the process of redistribution of the lunar mantle.

The results obtained show that the uniform redistribution could be interrupted by the already explained thermal cloud. On the official announcement from Brown University:

So far this would be explanation is considered more acceptable for these events; however, the research is far from complete and many mysteries remain to be unraveled.

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Via: uol.com.br, bbc.com Source: planetary.org, brown.edu