Posted on 09/08/2018 5:08:31 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Light and dark markings swirl over the moon, looking like cream swirled into coffee or clouds against a slate gray sky. These lunar swirls may result from ancient, magnetic lava just below the moon's surface, according to one new study.
A joint study between researchers at Rutgers University and the University of California, Berkeley, pointed to the moon's internally generated magnetic field and past volcanic activity to explain the lunar swirls.
Researchers have known for some time that lunar swirls share space with localized magnetic fields and that when those fields deflect particles from solar wind, parts of the moon's surface weather more slowly than other parts.
"But the cause of those magnetic fields, and thus of the swirls themselves, had long been a mystery," Sonia Tikoo, co-author of the study and a researcher at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in a statement.
The researchers developed mathematical models for these localized fields, or "geological magnets" as they're described in the statement. These models showed that each lunar swirl must exist above a narrow, magnetic object located just below the lunar surface.
Even stranger, researchers think that these subsurface magnetic objects are ancient, long, narrow lava tubes formed by flowing lava or lava dikes, which are vertical sheets of magma in the crust of a moon or planet. Past experiments have shown that, when heated above 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius) in a zero-oxygen environment, certain minerals in moon rocks break down and release metallic iron, making the rocks extremely magnetic.
So, when the moon was erupting lava over 3 billion years ago, these magnetic lava tubes or lava dikes were likely created and became highly magnetic as they cooled down, according to the statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
That’s just the way fungus grows in green cheese.
Does this mean there are high purity barely subsurface iron ore deposits on the moon with a X marks the spot... dig here? So assuming that, a large number of mirrors focused on a point would allow vacuum smelting and could be a game changer for a lunar base. So what if the lunar base was made out of pig iron at first. The thermal mass would help with the extreme sunlight and darkness temp fluctuations. Cast the domes a foot thick or thicker. No micrometeorite risks. With all the lunar dust easily available sacrificial casting after smelting.
How big are the lava tubes? Maybe they could be sealed off and used for habitat.
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