Indian spacecraft discovers an “ocean of death” on the Moon

(NLDO) - New analysis based on data from India's Pragyan lunar probe has brought many new surprises.

Pragyan is a self-contained lander that was dropped by the Chandrayaan-3 mothership during the 2023 mission of the same name. Pragyan has so far spent 11 months in hibernation on the Moon and has not been able to wake up.

Even so, scientists back on Earth continue to analyze the fascinating data sets it collected during its short lifetime.

The early Moon had a global magma ocean - Graphic: NASA

A study recently published in the scientific journal Nature has revealed an “ocean of death”. According to the team of authors led by the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL - India), Pragyan’s measurements revealed a unique mixture of chemical elements in the lunar soil (regolith) surrounding the lander that was relatively uniform.

This regolith is made up mainly of a white rock called ferroan anorthosite. Interestingly, the Pragyan sample collected from the South Pole region of the Moon has a composition that is "between" the composition of two other samples from two equatorial sites collected by the US Apollo 16 and the Soviet Luna-20 spacecraft in 1972.

This means that, despite some differences, the lunar soil is still chemically very similar at the South Pole and the equator. This supports the idea that a global ocean once covered the surface of the celestial body when it was "newborn".

But this ocean was not like what we see on Earth today, but more like the early Earth: It was an ocean of magma, meaning the "water" was all molten rock.

The long-standing hypothesis of a global magma ocean on the Moon, called the “Lunar Magma Ocean Model (LMO)”, would be clear evidence that it did indeed exist.

This result also fits into the larger hypothesis about the formation of Earth's satellites.

Many scientists believe that Earth was originally alone, but a Mars-sized planet called Theia crashed into it 4.5 billion years ago.

After the collision, part of the early Earth and Theia merged into the current Earth, some smaller fragments flew into orbit and gradually coalesced into the Moon.

Magma oceans were present from the time of their formation and persisted for tens or hundreds of millions of years afterward.

The cooling and crystallization of this magma ocean eventually helped form ferroan anorthosite rock, which made up the Moon’s early crust. Representing that ferroan anorthosite crust are the white rocks rich in the mysterious mineral anorthite that Apollo 11 found more than half a century ago.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/tau-an-do-phat-hien-mot-dai-duong-tu-than-o-mat-trang-196240822170527812.htm