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Moon Melting On Massive Scale Surprises Scientists
A new analysis of data from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) shows that molten rock may have been present on the Moon more recently and for longer periods than previously thought. Differentiation — a settling out of rock layers as liquid rock cools — would require thousands of years and a fluid rock sea at least six miles deep.
Melting on a massive scale. An impact event that formed the Orientale basin created a sea of molten rock 220 miles across and six miles deep. More recent lunar melts may help explain some puzzling questions and lead to some reinterpretations of lunar data including Apollo “moon rocks.”
The research, led by graduate student William Vaughan, shows that the impact event that formed the Orientale basin on the Moon’s western edge and far side produced a sea of melted rock 220 miles across and at least six miles deep. Similar seas of impact melt were probably present at various times in at least 30 other large impact basins on the Moon.
The research is published in the April issue of the journal Icarus.
Vaughan and his colleagues show that as these melt seas cooled, they differentiated in a way that was similar to the lunar magma ocean. As a result, rocks formed in melt seas could be mistaken for “pristine” rocks formed very early in the Moon’s history, the researchers say.
“This work adds the concept of impact melt …SEE- http://alien-ufo-community.ning.com/forum/topics/moon-melting-on-massive-scale-surprises-scientists-impacts-create
