New Delhi: A new study by scientists undermines previous research into the moon’s formation, and indicates it is over a hundred million years older than
was previously believed. The research, which has appeared in the journal Nature, suggests that the moon was born 4.51 billion years ago, which is earlier than previous estimates of 4.35 billion years. This could edit the calendar of the age for the creation of the solar system and even the formation of the moon.
The results, which are published by Francis Nimmo, a professor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, indicate that the moon had a rather intense ‘re-melting’ that masked its age. This melting which occurred when the moon was away from the earth was due to the tidal effect where the two bodies’ forces cause the moon to elongate and heat up. This event probably ‘turned over the clocks’ in lunar rocks, implying that the samples collected by NASA’s Apollo missions used to date the moon really depict a heating event instead of the formation age.
A Re-Melting Event Changes the Lunar Surface
According to the study, the kind of heating that made the moon’s surface melt again, happened after the moon was formed as it was gradually drifting away from Earth. The tidal forces resulting from the Earth’s attraction probably spun the moon, making it expand and contract and thereby raise sufficient temperatures on its surface. This event can well account for why the rocks brought back from the lunar surface and specifically zircon minerals seemed to be much older than the moon itself. Such zircon crystals were believed to have formed at the time when the moon was formed, but their age remained a mystery to the researchers until the present study.
New perspectives on the evolution of the Moon
The new schedule disproves the concept of the formation of the moon through a giant impact about 4.35 billion years ago when large celestial objects were expected to have merged together to form planets. The new research is consistent with previous proposals that the actual age of the moon could be as young as 4.5 billion years old and contribute to eliminating differences in the manner in which lunar minerals ages have been understood by scientists. The tidal heating for which similar phenomena have been observed in other moons of the solar system, including the moon Io of Jupiter, may explain these results.
NASA’s Artemis and China’s Chang’e future missions towards the moon may help validate the new theory as they reveal more about the moon’s history. Although 4.35 and 4.51 billion years may not seem significant in astronomical terminology, it is extremely important to try to understand early events to determine how the solar system and the Earth-moon system formed.
