William Atkins
Sunday, 18 January 2009 22:22
Science -
Space
Page 3 of 4
Based on these measurements, the researchers think that the Moon had a liquid core about 4.2 billion years ago.
This early liquid core produced a strong magnetic field, similar to the dipolar magnetic field that Earth today generates from its internal core.
The MIT article stated,
“That's not a new idea [that the Moon once had a liquid core], but it has been ‘one of the most controversial issues in lunar science’, Weiss said.”
The MIT article continued,
“Until the Apollo missions, many prominent scientists were convinced that the moon was born cold and stayed cold, never melting enough to form a liquid core. Apollo proved that there had been massive flows of lava on the moon's surface, but the idea that it has, or ever had, a molten core remained controversial.”
Weiss added,
"People have been vociferously debating this for 30 years.” [MIT].
The results of this study was published on January 16, 2009 in
Science magazine (vol. 323, no. 5912, pp. 356-359). Entitled “
Early Lunar Magnetism,” it was also authored by David L. Shuster (Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, California) and Jennifer Buz (MIT).
They concluded,
“These data imply that there was a long-lived field on the Moon of at least 1 microtesla 4.2 billion years ago. The early age, substantial intensity, and long lifetime of this field support the hypothesis of an ancient lunar core dynamo.”
Page four concludes with more comments, along with additional information on this Moon rock and the Apollo 17 mission.
