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Mare Imbrium pool, on the north side of the moon. | Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
For decades, scientists have tried to understand why some of the moon rocks are heavily magnetized, even if the Moon does not have a magnetic field today.
Moon rocks brought to Earth through NASA’s Apollo missions in the seventies and 1970s, as well as orbital spacecraft data showed that the moon surface parts, especially in distant, are rocks with rocks with rocks with rocks with rocks surprisingly strong magnetic signatures; New computer modeling shows that the huge effect of the asteroid could briefly strengthen the old moon, a weak magnetic field billions of years ago, leaving a magnetic print, still found in the lunar rocks.
“The Majority of the Strong Magnetic Fields That Are Measured by Orbing Spacecraft Can Be Explained by This Process, Especially On the Fare of the Moon, Isaac Narrett, A Graduate Student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sciences, Who Led the New Study, Said in a a statement;
Although the moon was once a weak magnetic field created by a small molten core, team research shows that it would probably not have been strong enough to throw the surface rocks. However, the huge effect of the asteroid could have changed it – at least briefly.
Narrett and his team modeling show that the powerful effect, probably the one who created the huge moon’s Imbrium pool, would have evaporated the surface material and created overheated, electrically charged particles known as plasma, clouds. When the plasma enveloped the moon, most of it would have focused on the opposite side of the impact, temporarily reinforcing the Moon’s magnetic field in the region. According to the new study, this transient magnetic influx of the rock in the rock district could capture until the field disappeared.
The results show that the effects would have caused seismic shock waves that crossed the moon and came close to the far side. These waves are likely to “stumble” in electrons in nearby rocks, as well as the magnetic field – effectively captured in an outdoor orientation as a geological instant photo.
According to the researchers, the whole sequence would be in less than an hour, but it was probably behind the magnetic signature that can still be detected today.
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“You seem to throw a 52-card deck into the air in the magnetic field, and each card has a compass needle,” says Benjamin Weiss, a co-author of the study, who is a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “When the cards stand back to the ground, they do it in a new orientation – it is basically a process of magnetization.”
Future missions could try team theory. The rocks firmly stuck are near the lunar South Pole, on the Farside – the area with several international missions, including NASA Artemis programPlan to explore in the coming years. If those rocks show signs of both shock and ancient magnetism, it could confirm that the moon’s magnetic anomalies are due to the enormous effect of the asteroid.
“There are large parts of the moon magnetism that are still inexplicable,” Narrett said.
The study was Published Friday (May 23) in Science Advances