Shrinking moon may be generating moonquakes

Shrinking moon may be generating moonquakes

In the last hundred hundred million years the Moon is receiving more than 150 feet (50 meters) of skin. As the grapefruits shrink, the Moon becomes shrunk. 

Unlike the flexible skin on a grapefruit, the crust of the surface of the moon is brittle, so it breaks into the form of the shrinking of the moon, causing a "thrust defect", where a part of the crust is pushed above the neighboring part. .

Thomas Waters, a senior scientist at Earth and Planet Studies Center at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Center, said, "Our analysis gives the first proof that these defects are still active and are producing the moon because the moon is gradually cool And is shrinking. " Museum in Washington "Some of these quakes can be quite strong, approximately five on the Richter scale."

These flaws look like scarp-shaped rocks when scarps are seen from the surface of the moon, usually tens of yards (meters) high and spanning a few miles (several kilometers).

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 Astronauts Eugène Serrán and Harrison Schmidt had to zig-zag about their moon rover and face the Lee-Lincoln Fault scarpe during the Apollo 17 mission landed in the Taurus-Litro valley in 1972.

Waters is the principal author of a study that analyzed the data of four semmometers placed by the Apollo astronauts on the Moon using an algorithm, or mathematical program, which was developed to detect by a rare seismic network.

 The algorithm gave a better estimate of the location of the moon. The seismometers are tools that measure the shaking caused by earthquakes, to record the location of various earthquake waves, and to record the power, which is called an epicenter. This study was published on May 13 in Nature Geoscience.

Astronauts placed instruments on the moon surface during Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 missions. The Apollo 11 cesmometer was operated for only three weeks, but four remaining 28 shallow Moonquakes - the types produced by these defects are expected - from 1969 to 1977. The Quaker Richter was around 2 to 5 on the scale.

Using revised location estimates from the new algorithm, the team found that eight out of 28 shallow quakes were within 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) of the defects appearing in the lunar images. 

It is quite close to temporarily calibrate the flaws, as modeling by the team shows that this is the distance at which there is a possibility of strong shaking, which is given the shape of these defect scarps. 

In addition, new analysis found that six out of eight earthquakes occurred when the moon was near its upozit located in its orbit at the farthest point of the Earth.

 This is where the extra tide stress due to the earth's gravity causes a peak in total stress, which can lead to slip incidents with these defects.

"We think that it is likely that these eight quakes were built by slipping through defects when stress was made, when the lunar layer was compacted by global contraction and tidal forces, it shows that Apollo Sesmometer The shrinking moon was recorded and the moon is still tectonically active. 

Waters said. Researchers run 10,000 simulations to calculate the coincidence of most coincidences near the defect during the most stress.

 They found that it is less than 4 percent. In addition, while other events, such as meteoroid effects, can produce quakes, they produce a different seismic signature than the Quake made by mistake slip incidents.

Other evidence that these faults are active, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) comes from spacecraft, with highly detailed images of the Moon. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) has estimated the fault scarcas to exceed 3,500. 

Some of these images mistakenly show landslides or boulders under a relatively bright patches on the slopes of Scarpians or nearby areas. 

Atrophy from the solar and space radiation gradually darkens the material on the lunar surface, so the bright areas point to such areas which come out fresh in space, as expected, recently sent by Mooncock The material was sliding from a rock. 

Examples of fresh boulder fields are found on the slope of a fault scarpe in the Vitlo cluster, and examples of potential bright features are associated with defects, which are near Craters Jamma Friesius C and Mockes El. Other BOTT fault pictures show track from Boulder Falls, it would be expected that if the fault slipped and the resulting earthquake sent the rocks to the slope of the rock.

 These tracks are evidence of a recent earthquake, because of the continuous rain of the effects of microeconomy on the Moon, they should be erased relatively soon in the geological time scales. Boulder tracks near the defects in the Schrodinger Basin have recently been attributed to Boulder Falls inspired by seismic shaking.

In addition, an epic Apocaloo of Approved Chandni is just 13 kilometers (8 miles) away from Li-Lincoln Scarpio by 17 astronauts. Astronauts also check boulders and boulder tracks on the slopes of North Massif near the landing site.

 A large landslide on South Massif, which covers the southern section of the Lee-Lincoln scarp, is further evidence of potential moonlight generated by fault slip incidents.

"It is really remarkable to see that about 50 years ago and how the LRO Mission data was added to further our understanding of the Moon, while suggesting that the mission of the future is intended to study the internal processes of the Moon.

LRO Project Scientist John Keller said at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Since the LRO is drawing a picture of the moon surface from 2009, the team would like to compare pictures of the specific faults of different times, whether there is any evidence of the activity of the Moon recently.

 In addition, "establishing a new network of semimometer on the surface of the moon, should be a priority for the human exploration of the Moon, to know more about the interior of both the Moon and to determine how dangerous the Moon exists. , "Co-writer Renee Weber said. , A planetary seismologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The moon is not the only world in our solar system, which is experiencing some contraction with age. Mercury has a heavy defect - about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) long and more than one mile (3 kilometers) - which is large enough relative to its size on the moon, indicates that it has shrunk much more than the Moon.

 Since the rocky world is expanding when they are warm and contract with cooling, the major flaws of Mercury show that possibly it was quite hot to chances of melt completely after its formation. 

Scientists trying to rebuild the origin of the moon wondered whether this had happened with the Moon, or if instead it was only partially molten, perhaps more slowly than a magma on deep internal heat With the ocean.

 The relatively small size of the scarps of the Moon's scarps corresponds to the more subtle contraction expected from the partially melt scenario.

NASA will send the first woman by 2024, and the next man on the moon. These American astronauts will take a human landing system from Gateway in the orbit of Moon, and the moon will land on the south pole. 

The agency will set up a permanent mission till 2028, then we will learn what we will learn on the moon and go to Mars.

This research was funded by NASA's LRO project, in which additional assistance was received from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

 LRO is managed by NASA Goddard for NASA headquarters in Washington, for the Directorate of Science Mission. The management of the LROC is done at the Arizona State University of Tempe.