Recently India's space program sent a lunar lander to the Moon as part of their Chandrayaan-3 mission. Now, data they have collected is beginning to corroborate other recent evidence that despite being quiet now, our planet’s only natural satellite used to be quite wild.
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00:00Recently, India's space program sent a lunar lander to the moon as part of the Chandrayaan-3
00:08mission.
00:09Now, data they have collected is beginning to corroborate other recent evidence that
00:13despite being quiet now, our planet's only natural satellite used to be quite wild.
00:18The Vikram spacecraft landed in an area further south than any other previous moon mission
00:22before it.
00:23The regolith samples they collected were essentially a mix of compounds discovered in every other
00:28lunar sample ever, which they say means that not only was the moon once a volcanic place,
00:32but a layer of magma likely covered its entire surface.
00:36This shouldn't be all that surprising, as the moon is thought to have formed when a
00:39Mars-sized planet collided with proto-Earth.
00:42Material eventually accreted where the moon orbits today, with the lunar surface taking
00:46hundreds of millions of years to cool after.
00:48Experts say the crystallized ferro and anorthosite rock that comprises its surface is a result
00:53of that cooling process.
00:55Still, mysteries remain about the moon's chaotic past, including why the moon's Earth-facing
00:59crust is thinner than the far side, and why its near side also appears to have once been
01:04far more volcanic.