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About 3.8 billion years ago, two massive canyons have probably formed on the moon in less than 10 minutes, according to new research.
Extraordinary training, each of size comparable to the Grand Canyon of the Earth, are hidden on the Moon distant side – the side that always faces the earth – near the lunar south pole, where NASA Artemis III mission aims to land humans at the end of 2026.
The lunar canyons are both part of Schrödinger’s largest impact basin, where an object still to be identified in the moon billions of years ago. The colossal impact has probably also led to the creation of canyons, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature communications.
The energy unleashed which created the canyons was 1,200 to 2,200 times more powerful than the nuclear explosion energy formerly planned to dig a second Panama channel, estimate the authors of the study.
Future missions could visit the basin and take rock samples to help scientists better understand the troubled origins and the history of the moon. The study of the moon could also reveal what the conditions were like at the beginning of the solar system, because asteroids and other rocky debris collided with planets and moons.
“The file of bombing of the early solar system has been erased from the earth,” said Dr. David Kring, author of the main study, the main scientist of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, an Institute of the Universities Space Research Association, in a e-mail. “It was destroyed by erosion, plates tectonics and other geological processes. If we want to (to) understand how impact events affected early land, we must collect samples in places on the moon like the Schrödinger basin and its canyons. »»
Canyons and ravines created by rocky debris sequences radiate from the Schrödinger basin.
Lunar geologists have always known that the two canyons appearing in the new study, called Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck, were particularly important. The research team behind the latest report, however, was able to analyze the images of the massive geological characteristics using photos and elevation data captured by NASA lunar recognition orbitwhich has been around the moon since 2009. The data has enabled the team to build cards in the region, including the basin and its environment.
The measures have shown that these two canyons were similar in width and length at the Grand Canyon. Vallis Schrödinger measures 168 miles (270 kilometers) long and 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) deep, and Vallis Planck measures 174 miles (280 kilometers) long and 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) of depth .
“I trained students and astronauts in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, and I made several trips to the river through the Grand Canyon, so I realized that the Grand Canyon was an important way to help people To understand the dramatic scale of the lunar landscape, ”said Kring.
Spatial vessel data also helped researchers determine the distances along each canyon of the impact point. The team used the distances in the impact crop calculations to determine the speeds of the rocks that produced the canyons and the sizes of the material in these rock flows, said Kring.
The calculations allowed researchers to adapt to what they think they have spent 3.8 billion years ago at a time when asteroids and comets bombed the earth and the moon.
“Nearly four billion years ago, an asteroid or a comet flew over the southern pole of the Lunar, brushed by the summits of the Malapert and Mouton mountain, and struck the lunar surface,” said Kring. “The impact ejected high energy rock flows that have sculpted two canyons … in less than 10 minutes.”
By way of comparison, it took 5 to 6 million years for water to erodes the Arizona landscape to create the Grand Canyon.
The celestial object that has plowed in the moon probably reached a speed of more than 34,000 miles per hour (almost 55,000 kilometers per hour). The impactor created the Schrödinger basin, which measures nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) wide, while propeling debris that sculpted deep grooves towards the basin.
Then, the ejected debris that created the canyons probably climbed on the lunar surface, then collided at speeds of approximately 2,237 miles per hour (3,600 kilometers per hour). These secondary impact craters have formed canyons, according to the study.
The energy of the impacts that created the canyons was on a Gargantuan scale. The study authors estimate that it was more than 700 times higher than the total yield of nuclear explosion tests carried out by the United States, the former Soviet Union and China. The energy of the explosions was also about 130 times more destructive than energy in the world stock of nuclear weapons, according to the study.
While many craters impacted on earth have long disappeared due to erosion and other natural factors, the craters of the moon can help researchers better understand what happened on earth there are billions of ‘years.
“The Schrödinger crater is similar in many ways Kilolage chicxulub crater On Earth, “said the co-author of the Study Gareth Collins, professor of planetary sciences at the Imperial College in London, in a press release. “By showing how Schrödinger’s canyons (kilometers) of Schrödinger have been sculpted, this work has helped to shed light on how energetic the ejection of these impacts can be.”
Noah Petro, scientist of the NASA project for the lunar to the recognition orbit and artemis III, which aims to land humans on the moon for the first time since 1972, believes that the document presents a beautiful hypothesis on the way in which canyons were formed. Petro was not involved in the study.
“What is presented in the newspaper is a hypothesis binding to secondary craft and these gouges which radiate far and far from them,” said Petro. “I think that the interesting thing made by paper is this connection to a single point, then supposing what it means for the formation and geometry of the formation of the basin. They use modern observations from a spacecraft that has been in orbit around the moon for more than 15 years to rebuild an event that occurred 3.8 billion years ago.
It’s always exciting because we take back the time layers that are so well preserved for us on the moon. “”
The southern pole of the moon is filled with geological mysteries that scientists are impatient to explore, said Petro.
Schrödinger’s impact basin, one of the youngest and large craters with impact on the moon, is a few hundred kilometers from the oldest and largest in the moon, said Petro.
Schrödinger is located in the outdoor parts of the South-Aitken Pole basin, which the future Artemis missions to the crew plan to explore.
The South Aitken Pole Basin is estimated at around 4.3 billion years, but only rock samples will be able to prove if this is the case, Petro said.
“The first astronauts to walk at the South Pole will potentially walk on the oldest rocks that humans have ever explored,” he said.
The new study shows that the lunar debris excavated by the impacts that created the Schrödinger basin and its canyons radiated asymmetrically, distributing it far from the Lunar South Pole, rather than burying the region. This means that all the rocks collected by Artemis astronauts will provide an overview of the first lunar story, Kring said.
Kring and his team plan to continue to study sites that could potentially be explored by future missions.
Lunar Lander of the Draper team will aim to land in the Schrödinger basin in 2026 as part of the commercial initiative of the lunar payload services of NASA, which is part of the Artemis program. The robotic mission will provide seismometers to study tectonic activity on the lunar interior, among other scientific objectives.
“The distant side of the moon is the kingdom of the explorer,” said Petro. “Whether it is a robotic mission or an astronaut mission that goes to the moon, the Schrödinger basin has never been seen or visited by a mission. We are deeply in the exploration of these great craters because they are so unique. These are giant retrocavens that unearthed the lunar surface and a material exposed below, so they become very convincing targets. »»
Kring sees the value of the collection of samples of the basin and canyons to help determine whether the estimated age of the two is correct, as well as to study the old lunar material they have contributed to the surface.
“If an astronaut could take samples from the canyons rims, he would collect samples up to 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) below the surface,” he said.
And astronauts could see incredible views.
“The splendor of canyons is so dramatic that if they were exposed on earth, they would be national or international parks,” said Kring.