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Scientists have discovered an ancient ocean of liquid molten rock covering the surface of the moon’s south pole, providing evidence for the theory that magma played a crucial role in shaping the moon’s surface about 4.5 billion years ago.
Remnants of this ocean were discovered by India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which landed at the South Pole last August. The mission explored an isolated and mysterious region where no spacecraft had ever landed before. The discovery supports the idea that as the moon formed, it began to cool, exposing a lighter iron mineral, anorthosite, to the surface.
Data collection
The robot is designed to withstand temperature fluctuations from 70 degrees Celsius to -10 degrees Celsius, and can navigate autonomously across the moon’s uneven, dusty surface. It made 23 measurements using an instrument called the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer. This instrument excites atoms and analyzes the energy produced to identify minerals in lunar soil.
The team also found evidence of a massive meteorite crashing into the area four billion years ago. The impact is believed to have created the South Pole-Etienne Basin, one of the largest craters in the solar system, measuring 2,500 kilometers in diameter.
With India planning another mission to the moon in 2025 or 2026, hopes are high that water ice at the South Pole will be discovered. Such a discovery would be a blow to space agencies’ dreams of building a human base on the moon.
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