[78] In 2014 NASA announced "widespread evidence of young lunar volcanism" at 70 irregular mare patches identified by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, some less than 50 million years old. [222] Shackleton Energy Company is building a program to establish operations on the south pole of the Moon to harvest water and supply their Propellant Depots. [78] Moonquakes and releases of gas also indicate some continued lunar activity. LDEX detected an average of one 0.3 micrometer Moon dust particle each minute. Computer simulations of giant impacts have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. It's moving far too slowly for it to be rock ejected from a cosmic body.
The inclusions were formed during explosive eruptions on the Moon approximately 3.7 billion years ago. The Moon's far side has a crust that is 50 km (31 mi) thicker than that of the near side. After the Sun, the Moon is the second-brightest celestial object regularly visible in Earth's sky. Pluto data and modeling: NASA/SWrI/LPI, Take a virtual journey to Saturn and its seven largest moons with 3D visualizations, featuring Dione, Enceladus, Iapetus, Mimas, Rhea, Tethys, and Titan. [215] The Indian Space Research Organisation planned to launch Chandrayaan-2 in 2013, which would have included a Russian robotic lunar rover. Saturnian moons visual data: NASA/JPL/LPI, Copyright © 2019 - Lunar and Planetary Institute, Explore lunar and planetary science in augmented reality. The 1979 Moon Agreement was created to restrict the exploitation of the Moon's resources by any single nation, but as of November 2016, it has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, none of which engages in self-launched human space exploration or has plans to do so.
Since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the Moon has been visited only by un-crewed spacecraft. Discuss: New 'mini-moon' about to be captured by Earth might just be space junk, published by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the International Space Station had to make a "maneuver burn". [59] The final liquids to crystallise would have been initially sandwiched between the crust and mantle, with a high abundance of incompatible and heat-producing elements. [259][260][261] [168], Eclipses only occur when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are all in a straight line (termed "syzygy"). [63][65] The highest elevations of the surface are located directly to the northeast, and it has been suggested might have been thickened by the oblique formation impact of the South Pole–Aitken basin. Its shape is more elongated than current tidal forces can account for. "LCROSS Lunar Impactor Mission: "Yes, We Found Water! [37], The prevailing hypothesis is that the Earth–Moon system formed after an impact of a Mars-sized body (named Theia) with the proto-Earth (giant impact). [72] This view gained support in 1892 from the experimentation of geologist Grove Karl Gilbert, and from comparative studies from 1920 to the 1940s,[190] leading to the development of lunar stratigraphy, which by the 1950s was becoming a new and growing branch of astrogeology.[72]. source image: NASA/JPL-Caltech [116][117] The anomalies greatly influence the orbit of spacecraft about the Moon. Atomic clocks also show that Earth's day lengthens by about 15 microseconds every year,[165] slowly increasing the rate at which UTC is adjusted by leap seconds. Ranging to the stations is routinely performed from Earth-based stations with an accuracy of a few centimeters, and data from this experiment are being used to place constraints on the size of the lunar core. View locations of past landing sites and the top three targets for the Mars 2020 rover. The study included the possibility of conducting a lunar-based nuclear test. [266][267][268][269] The spectrometer observed absorption lines common to hydroxyl, in reflected sunlight, providing evidence of large quantities of water ice, on the lunar surface. This results in it always keeping nearly the same face turned towards Earth. Moonquakes are much less common and weaker than are earthquakes, although moonquakes can last for up to an hour – significantly longer than terrestrial quakes – because of the absence of water to damp out the seismic vibrations. As a result, the Moon would be suspended in the sky over one meridian, as is already currently the case with Pluto and its moon Charon. They are characterized by a high albedo, appear optically immature (i.e.
[72] It is the largest moon in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet,[j] though Charon is larger relative to the dwarf planet Pluto, at 1/9 Pluto's mass. [135] From images taken by Clementine in 1994, it appears that four mountainous regions on the rim of the crater Peary at the Moon's north pole may remain illuminated for the entire lunar day, creating peaks of eternal light. A prize of $20 million was to be awarded to the first private venture to get to the Moon with a robotic lander by the end of March 2018, with additional prizes worth $10 million for further milestones. [122], The Moon has an atmosphere so tenuous as to be nearly vacuum, with a total mass of less than 10 tonnes (9.8 long tons; 11 short tons). [252] The ancient Sumerians believed that the Moon was the god Nanna,[253][254] who was the father of Inanna, the goddess of the planet Venus,[253][254] and Utu, the god of the sun. An initially hotter mantle and/or local enrichment of heat-producing elements in the mantle could be responsible for prolonged activities also on the far side in the Orientale basin.