Monday, March 5, 2012

Geologically Active Moon


Some think that the moon is dead, but new studies form NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter proves that the moon is both shrinking, and expanding at the same time. This doesn't make much sense, but it is shrinking in some areas, and expanding in others. In the early stages of a planets evolution, most of the planets melted and reformed. However with the moon, only the outer layer melted and reformed, causing the center to still be very hot. "We think the moon is in a general state of global contraction because of cooling of a still hot interior," said Thomas Watters. Due to the changes in the moons surface, narrow trenches are formed called Graben. There are a handfull that have been found on the moon so far. It is estimated that the distance between the center and the surface shrunk by 300 feet.
This is really interesting to me because i never knew that planets and moons melted and reformed. Also i never thought of the moon being geologically active before. Does that mean that there can be high mountains on the moon? And if there is water on the moon, could there ever be an ocean?


1 comment:

  1. Is there a limit to how mountainous it can get before gravity causes it to remain circular?

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