Sentences with phrase «lunar crust»

Over the last six years, improvements in measurement techniques and highly detailed lunar orbiter maps of the magnetized lunar crust sparked Weiss, Tikoo and other scientists to reexamine the Apollo rocks for new clues.

This vast volcanic plain appears to contain some of the youngest lava flows on the moon, as well as rocks ejected by impacts that could be parts of the buried lunar crust.

The new, younger age obtained for the oldest lunar crust is similar to ages obtained for the oldest terrestrial minerals — zircons from western Australia — suggesting that the oldest crusts on both Earth and Moon formed at approximately the same time, and that this time dates from shortly after the giant impact.

Helium - 3, embedded in the lunar crust by the solar wind, could be fuel for future fusion power plants.

Among these were Copernicus, Gassendi and Tycho, large impact craters containing central peaks that were thrust upward at the time of impact, bringing material from deep within the lunar crust to the surface.

This is a real puzzle, since the lunar crust is made up of minerals that are hard to magnetise.

By comparing those pictures, scientists will able to see how much of the mountain's rock was broken up during the crash — and know how intact the lunar crust is at that spot, says the mission's chief scientist, MIT geophysicist Maria Zuber.

The effects of these forces flattened the Moon slightly at its poles and solidified a permanent bulge in the lunar crust, creating the feature known as the fossil bulge.

That's because the lunar crust is thicker there, making it harder for asteroid impacts to break through and release magma.

Efforts to analyze the moon's overall shape are complicated by the large basins and craters created by powerful impacts that deformed the lunar crust and ejected large amounts of material.

These discoveries provide a new tool to unravel the processes involved in the formation of the Moon, how the lunar crust cooled, and its impact history.

Chang «e-3, the first spacecraft expected to make a soft landing on the moon since 1976, has a robust science payload that will study the lunar crust underfoot and Earth and stars overhead.

However, the data have also revealed the presence of highly evolved, silica - rich lunar soils in kilometer - scale and larger exposures, expanded the compositional range of the anorthosites that dominate the lunar crust, and shown that pristine lunar mantle is not exposed at the lunar surface at the kilometer scale.