The Moon was once an ocean of magma, with its exterior eventually cooling. However, it remained volcanically active for eons and now experts say it had activity for around a billion years longer than anyone thought.
Category
đź“š
LearningTranscript
00:00The moon was once an ocean of magma, with its exterior eventually cooling.
00:07Still, for millions of years underneath that dusty exterior, it was a volcanic place, with
00:12astronomers more recently discovering ancient lava tubes.
00:15Previous theories have suggested that the moon remained volcanically active until around
00:192 billion years ago.
00:20Now, after China's unmanned Chang'e 5 mission has returned lunar material for the first
00:24time in over 50 years, experts now say it was volcanic far more recently than previously
00:30believed.
00:31These are microscopic samples of volcanic glass beads taken from the moon's surface.
00:35And now, after radioscopic dating, researchers say they were created only around 120 million
00:40years ago, meaning the moon was volcanically active far more recently.
00:44However, the researchers say they also noticed a 1.9 billion year gap between eruptions,
00:49which likely points to very dwindling volcanism on the moon at that time.
00:53They add that this changes a lot of what we thought we knew about small celestial bodies,
00:57namely that they can maintain sufficient heat to sustain internal temperatures until very
01:01late in their lives.
01:03The researchers add that there is a chance the heat was maintained by pockets of radioactive
01:07decay, a process which also happens on Earth.