Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Scientists China and England recently revealed the far side Month It turned out to be much cooler than the side facing the earth. This temperature difference is revealed from the analysis of rock samples collected by China’s Chang’e-6 mission, the first mission that succeeded in bringing home material from the far-away side of the month.
The study, published in the Nature Geoscience scientific journal on September 30, 2024, said that rocks from the remote side were formed at lava temperatures of around 100 degrees Celsius lower than rocks from the close side.
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“The striking difference between the close and far sides of the topography, volcanic activity, and crust structure provides important insights on the formation and evolution of the moon,” wrote a research team led by scientists from the University College London (UCL), Peking University, and China National Nuclear Corporation, launch South China Morning PostSaturday (4/10).
For decades, scientists suspect the heat difference between the two sides of the month. However, due to the limitations of samples from the far side, this hypothesis can never be proven directly, until now.
“The close and far and far sides are very different, both on the surface and most likely on the inside,” said Li Yang, professor from UCL and Peking University, in a press release.
“This is one of the biggest mysteries of the moon. We call it the two -faced moon (two-faced moon), “Further.
He added that the dramatic temperature difference between the close and far sides has long been suspected, but this latest study provides the first evidence using a real sample.
The long side of the month is famous for having more mountains and crater, as well as fewer illicit plains called basalt, which is the rock resulting from volcanic activity. Researchers found that heat -producing elements such as uranium, thorium, and potassium, which often appeared with other rare elements in material called Kreep, far less on the long side of the month.
“Our findings show that the moon coat on the far side has a lower temperature than the close side, according to the difference in thickness of the crust and the distribution of heat -producing elements,” the researchers wrote.
They also mentioned that this difference was likely to be caused by an imbalance in the distribution of Kreep, which had been detected through satellite observations on the near the moon.
Interestingly, since the Chang’e-6 sample was returned to Earth in June 2024, scientists also found evidence that the giant asteroid collision of more than 4 billion years ago may have affected the structure of the moon, especially on the far side.
A sample weighing 300 grams collected from the southern edge of Apollo Crater, in the Aitken South Pole Basin area, one of the largest craters in the moon, also showed the age of rocks around 2.8 billion years, strengthening findings from previous missions such as Apollo and Chang’e-5.
Although it has revealed a lot, scientists acknowledge that the origin of the definite temperature between the two sides of the month has not been solved. They stated that the thermal evolution of the moon took place differently on both sides for most of the history of the moon.
This discovery is considered a big leap in the study of the geology of the moon and the evolution of celestial bodies in the solar system.
(DMI/DMI)
[Gambas:Video CNN]
