Did You Know That The Moon Was Once Covered in Magma?

Amaze Lab

Recently India's space program sent a lunar lander to the Moon as part of their Chandrayaan-3 mission. Now, data they have collected is beginning to corroborate other recent evidence that despite being quiet now, our planet’s only natural satellite used to be quite wild.

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00:00Recently, India's space program sent a lunar lander to the moon as part of the Chandrayaan

00:083 mission. Now, data they have collected is beginning to corroborate other recent evidence

00:13that despite being quiet now, our planet's only natural satellite used to be quite wild.

00:18The Vikram spacecraft landed in an area further south than any other previous moon mission before

00:23it. The regolith samples they collected were essentially a mix of compounds discovered in

00:27every other lunar sample ever, which they say means that not only was the moon once a volcanic

00:31place, but a layer of magma likely covered its entire surface. This shouldn't be all that

00:36surprising, as the moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-sized planet collided with

00:40proto-Earth. Material eventually accreted where the moon orbits today, with the lunar surface

00:45taking hundreds of millions of years to cool after. Experts say the crystallized heroine

00:50anorthocyte rock that comprises its surface is a result of that cooling process. Still,

00:55mysteries remain about the moon's chaotic past, including why the moon's earth-facing crust

00:59is thinner than the far side, and why its near side also appears to have once been far more

01:05volcanic.

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