The moon is more battered than scientists once thought. NASA has found that the moon is highly damaged under its surface after taking years of beatings from debris in space in its early history.
Using two satellites Ebb and Flow, NASA was able to produce detailed gravity maps that show the variations in gravity across the moon's surface, according to the Associated Press.
The maps showed evidence of a highly fractured lunar interior right below the surface. The moon's crust is comprised of a mass of pulverized rock which are the remains of impacts during its early years when planets were forming. The satellites also showed that the crust is thinner than scientists thought. It is only 25 miles thick.
Obvious damage can be seen on the moon's surface as it contains large mountain masses and deep craters. The satellite gravity maps showed the uneven distribution of mass across throughout the moon. It showed that below he surface some regions are much more dense than others.
The evidence shown through the maps may suggest that other planets including earth, may have took the same beating from space debris in their early years.
"If you look at how highly cratered the Moon is - the Earth used to look like that; parts of Mars still do look like that," Prof Maria Zuber, Grail's principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US told the BBC.
"This period of time when all these impacts where occurring - this was the time when the first microbes were developing. We had some idea from the chemistry [of ancient rocks] that Earth was a violent place early on, but now we now know it was an extremely difficult place energetically as well, and it shows just how tenacious life had to be to hang on," she continued.
All of these findings were presented at a meeting at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and they were published in the journal Science online.
NASA's Ebb and Flow satellites had a specific mission to measure lunar gravity. The washing machine-size spacecraft with the satellites orbited the moon's surface from about 35 miles away in a mission that came to an end in May.
The location of the satellites allowed them to observe the moon above and below the surface. The volcanoes, basins and craters of the moon were observed under great detail by the satellites.Although Ebb and Flow's first mission ended in may, they're on an extended mission in which they're observing the moon's surface from just 14 miles away, so even better images may be available in the future.
"We expect a lot more exciting results in the future, so stay tuned," Grail project scientist and co-investigator Sami Asmar of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. told Space.com
Ebb and Flow's mission will come to an end later this month when the satellites will crash into the moon.
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