{"id":138696,"date":"2024-12-19T07:33:10","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T00:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=138696"},"modified":"2024-12-19T07:33:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T00:33:10","slug":"the-moon-may-be-older-than-previously-thought-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=138696","title":{"rendered":"The moon may be older than previously thought, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"summary-box\" data-testid=\"summary-box\">\n<div class=\"summary-box__content\">\n<h2 class=\"summary-box__headline\">The Summary<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"summary-box__items\">\n<li>A new study suggests that the moon may be older than many scientists thought.<\/li>\n<li>The research suggests that lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions date back to an event that melted the moon&#8217;s surface \u2014 not to the moment it formed.<\/li>\n<li>The authors therefore think the moon formed around 4.51 billion years ago \u2014 more than 100 million years earlier than the commonly accepted estimate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"\">The moon may be more than 100 million years older than some scientists previously thought, according to a new study.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The research, published Wednesday in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-024-08231-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">journal Nature<\/a>, challenges the longstanding idea<strong> <\/strong>that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/space\/geologic-clock-seeks-end-debate-over-age-moon-n70171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">moon formed<\/a> roughly 4.35 billion years ago, after a Mars-sized object smashed into the early Earth and created our natural satellite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">That timeline is based on analyses of lunar rock samples from NASA\u2019s Apollo missions. But the new study suggests that the moon formed earlier \u2014 around 4.51 billion years ago \u2014 and then experienced a dramatic \u201cre-melting\u201d event at the time other scientists had assumed it first formed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The melting occurred as the moon was moving away from the Earth, the authors say, when the planet\u2019s constant gravitational tugs warped the moon in a way that caused it to super-heat. The process altered the lunar surface and thus hid the moon\u2019s real age, according to the study.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Francis Nimmo, the study\u2019s lead author and a professor in the Earth &amp; Planetary Sciences Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the extreme heating likely re-melted the moon\u2019s surface, effectively \u201cresetting all the clocks\u201d in lunar rocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cSo the moon rocks are not telling us when the moon formed, but they are telling us when a later event happened that heated the moon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Within the scientific community, there have been disagreements about the moon\u2019s precise age for decades; Nimmo and his colleagues are not the first to put forward an older estimate. The new findings add to a growing consensus that there may be more to the moon\u2019s history than what the Apollo samples revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Planetary scientists have, for instance, struggled to explain how a major collision created the moon 4.35 billion years ago, at a time in the solar system\u2019s history when most large celestial objects were thought to have already clumped together to form planets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe people who studied the Apollo samples had their reasonable guess for the age of the moon, but people who model how planets in the solar system formed always found it hard to explain how there was still so much big stuff flying around 200 million years after the solar system formed,\u201d Nimmo said. \u201cThat has been the state of affairs, with two camps wanting different ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The adjusted timeline from Nimmo\u2019s team may also help explain why<strong> <\/strong>minerals on the moon called zircon \u2014\u00a0which<strong> <\/strong>were found in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/apollo-lunar-rocks-show-moon-way-older-we-thought-ncna1037496\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apollo moon rocks<\/a> \u2014\u00a0were estimated to be roughly 4.5 billion years old. Lunar zircon, like other minerals on the moon, was thought to have crystallized  from extreme temperatures when the moon was created, but its much older age has long confounded scientists. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In the new study, Nimmo and his colleagues suggest that the super-heating of the moon was the product of a process known as \u201ctidal heating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cAs the moon gets pushed away, there are particular points where the orbit can temporarily go haywire,\u201d Nimmo said. \u201cDuring that time, the moon can get squeezed and stretched by Earth\u2019s gravity, and that causes it to heat up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Similar tidal heating is thought to occur between Jupiter and its moons. A <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1029\/2020GL088317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2020 study<\/a> found that the gas giant\u2019s gravity may stretch and squeeze some of its icy moons enough to heat their interiors or even melt rock into magma. That&#8217;s thought to be the case with the Jovian moon Io.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Recent and upcoming lunar missions could provide better <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/moon-active-volcanoes-dinosaur-age-study-finds-rcna169875\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">insights into the moon\u2019s evolutionary history<\/a>, according to Nimmo. That includes China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 6 mission, which collected samples from the far side of the moon, and NASA\u2019s planned Artemis moon missions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Carsten M\u00fcnker, a scientist at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Cologne who was not involved with the study, said tidal heating is a plausible way to satisfy disagreements over the timing of the moon\u2019s formation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">M\u00fcnker\u2019s own research has focused on dating lunar minerals as a way to narrow down the moon\u2019s precise age. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The new study, he said, &#8220;was written by people who were long in the camp that the moon was younger, but now all three [authors] agree with an older lunar age.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThis certainly moves our understanding closer,\u201d M\u00fcnker said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Although the difference between 4.35 billion years and 4.51 billion years may seem relatively small when it comes to timescales in the universe, nailing down what occurred in those chaotic early days of the solar system is key to understanding how the planets in our celestial neighborhood came to be.<\/p>\n<p class=\"endmark\">\u201cThe evolution of the solar system was quite rapid. Within just a few tens of millions of years, the whole array of celestial bodies as we know them today was formed,\u201d M\u00fcnker said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we need a really good time resolution of these very early events, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s important to understand how the Earth-moon system formed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/science\/space\/moon-age-older-study-rcna184499\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Summary A new study suggests that the moon may be older than many scientists thought. The research suggests that lunar rock samples from the Apollo missions date back to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=138696\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}