Scientists have recently made a discovery about the moon that is enough to surprise everyone. In 1972, astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan landed on the moon, and no one has landed on the lunar planet since.
It was the Tauras-Littrow Valley, located on the edge of the Mare Serenitatis, where the astronauts landed. It was considered to be a geologically diverse place.
Astronauts collected 110.5 kg of lunar rocks. And not only that, the astronauts collected a total of 741 soil samples. Crust rocks, basalt and breccia were some of the lunar rock types collected.
Age of the month
The moon is about 40 million years old, according to a new study.
It appears to have been formulated about 4.46 billion years ago. It was created in the time span of the first 110 million years since the formation of the solar system.
All these years, the samples collected from the land of the Moon have been thoroughly studied.
On October 23, 2023, findings regarding the Moon’s age were published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters. These findings are actually based on a technology known as atomic tomography (APT).
The study’s senior author, Philip Heck, said in a statement: “I love the fact that this study was done on a sample that was collected and brought to Earth 51 years ago. At that time, atom probe tomography had not yet been developed, and scientists would not have been able to imagine the kinds of analyzes we are doing today.”
Discovering the Moon’s Age
The age of the Moon stated in this way is not just a provisional assumption, but actually a conclusion drawn after scientists reanalyzed crystals from lunar sample 72255. The sample contained zircon about 4.2 billion years old. This is one of the oldest zircons ever discovered.
Zircon is the oldest mineral that exists on Earth. Moreover, geologists believe that the mineral contains important information related to the origin of the Earth and life on it.
In the new study, scientists used APT to learn more about the clustering of lead found in the samples. APT has nanoscale spatial resolution. Lead distribution. Why lead? Well, the distribution of lead is used to determine the age of the zircon present in the rock. Therefore, determining the distribution of lead is an important aspect of the study.
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Categories: Trends
Source: newstars.edu.vn