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"Samples were intentionally saved for a time when technology and instrumentation had advanced to the point that we could maximize the scientific return on these unique samples," said NASA's Ryan Zeigler, Apollo sample curator and manager of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office in Houston. But such investigations require careful planning and execution by a consortium of experts with experience in handling and analyzing lunar samples... "Given the recent renewed interest in the moon, and specifically about the volatile budget of lunar regolith, these sealed samples likely contain information that would be important in the design of future lunar missions," Zeigler...

Given the reality of the dark spots, which soon became known as "atmospheric holes" because of their appearance in the images, there is only one explanation which has endured over all these years to present. That is, the holes are due to the shadowing of the atmospheric light by an object above the atmosphere. This object simply cannot be a stony or iron meteor because the holes are very large, tens of miles in diameter. A rock of this size would provide a disastrous impact on the Earth's surface. As it turns out, water vapor is very good at absorbing...

Scientists have detected magmatic water — water that originates from deep within the Moon’s interior — on the surface of the Moon. These findings represent the first such remote detection of this type of lunar water, and were arrived at using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) carried aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. ... M3 (pronounced “M-cube”) fully imaged the large impact crater Bullialdus in 2009. “It’s within 25 degrees latitude of the equator and so not in a favorable location for the solar wind to produce significant surface water,” Klima explained. “The rocks in the central peak of...

The moon's interior may harbor 100 times more water than previous estimates, according to a new study that took a fresh look at samples of moon rocks collected by Apollo astronauts nearly 40 years ago. The researchers determined that the lunar water likely originated early in the moon's formation history, suggesting that it is, in fact, native to the moon. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, and other colleagues, said it's likely that the water was preserved from the hot magma that was present when the moon began to form – some 4.5 billion years ago.

Secular scientists used to regard the planetary collision theory as a triumph in explaining several of the moon's specific arrangements. But newfound facts severely debilitate this lunar impact origins theory. According to this new theory, an early Earth collided at a glancing angle with a planet that was one or two times the mass of Mars. Some of the debris launched into orbit around Earth and somehow collected to form the moon. This could explain the moon's peculiar orbit and some of its other properties.1 But, as Bob Jones University astronomy professor Ron Samec noted, recent studies refute even this...

The mystery of how Earth got its Moon is one step closer to being solved. The European Space Agency's lunar-orbiting craft called SMART-1 has completed the first detailed chemical mapping of the lunar surface. The detected chemicals, such as calcium and magnesium, give a boost to the longstanding theory that the Moon formed from the debris flung into space after a collision between early Earth and a Mars-size planet. Calcium, in particular, is found deep inside Earth. So if the Moon has a lot of calcium, then perhaps it is made of material that was once inside our planet. Armed...

Artist’s impression of the collision between the early Earth and Theia. Since Theia originated in the inner Solar System, in this perspective the Sun can be seen in the background. (Credit: MPS / Mark A. Garlick) In A Nutshell * Inner Solar System origins: By measuring iron isotopes in Moon rocks and meteorites, researchers determined Theia probably formed closer to the Sun than Earth did, not in the distant outer Solar System. * Identical twins: Earth and the Moon have virtually identical chemical signatures, but both fall outside the range of any meteorites we’ve found—suggesting they incorporated exotic material from...

...Unlike most near-Earth asteroids, which are thought to hail from the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, asteroid 2016 HO3, also known as Kamo'oalewa, was likely blasted from the Giordano Bruno crater on the moon's far side and has been hurtling through space for several million years...Measuring between 150 and 190 feet in diameter, the asteroid is about half the size of the "London Eye" Ferris wheel...Previous research pointing to Kamo'oalewa likely originating from the moon included its reflectance spectrum, which is more compatible with lunar materials rather than the general population of near-Earth asteroids, and...

Scientists believe Kamo’oalewa will remain alongside Earth for millions of years. Could a near-Earth asteroid be a piece of the moon? Astronomers from the University of Arizona believe so. In a captivating cosmic discovery, scientists uncovered evidence suggesting that a near-Earth asteroid called Kamo’oalewa might be a fragment of the moon. The finding challenges previous assumptions about the origins of near-Earth asteroids and could have significant implications for our understanding of celestial bodies close to our planet.

Earth has a new moon - or at least a 'quasi-moon', a new study has revealed. A quasi-moon is a space rock that circles the Earth, but is gravitationally bound by the sun. This quasi-moon, called 2023 FW13, was discovered by experts using the Pan-STARRS telescope at the top of the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, and is one of a handful of known quasi-moons. Experts think the ancient cosmic companion has been in Earth's vicinity since 100 BC and will keep circling our planet for at least another 1,500 years, until AD 3700. Thankfully, neither 2023 FW13 or a similar...

Apparently Earth has at least one, and probably several "mini moons" that follow Earth's orbit around the sun, and most likely come from chunks of Earth's moon blasted out from collisions with meteors and asteroids. Interesting, didn't know anything about this.

A new study of metal ore deep inside the moon is offering fresh evidence that Earth's natural satellite was formed by an ancient planet crashing into Earth long ago. This long-theorized interplanetary collision — which scientists believe occurred some 4.5 billion years ago — saw a Mars-sized planet named 'Theia' slice itself into hot lava fragments upon impact with the Earth. While some of Theia's planetary remains appear to be buried as dense and massive 'blobs' deep underneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean's tectonic plates, scientists said evidence for where the rest of Theia went after this crash had remained...

Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Scientists now believe the moon could actually be around 40 million years older than initially believed, according to new research. The finding comes after a group of researchers reexamined a collection of dust collected from the lunar surface and brought back to Earth in 1972, the last time astronauts visited the moon. Scientists took an in-depth look at crystals embedded within the dust, which was returned to Earth as part of NASA's Apollo 17 mission. Researchers believe a massive collision of debris with Earth led to the creation of the moon. That impact took place around...

Earth is far from a solid mass of rock. The outer layer of our planet – known as the lithosphere – is made up of more than 20 tectonic plates; as these gargantuan slates glide about the face of the planet, we get the movement of continents, and interaction at the boundaries, not least of which is the rise and fall of entire mountain ranges and oceanic trenches. Yet there's some debate over what causes these giant slabs of rock to move around in the first place. Amongst the many hypotheses put forward over the centuries, convection currents generated by...

Think of the red bluffs and cliffs of the Grand Canyon as Earth's history textbook, explained Barra Peak, lead author of the new study and a graduate student in geological sciences at CU Boulder. If you scale down the canyon's rock faces, you can jump back almost 2 billion years into the planet's past. But that textbook is also missing pages: In some areas, more than 1 billion years' worth of rocks have disappeared from the Grand Canyon without a trace. It's a mystery that goes back a long way. John Wesley Powell, the namesake of today's Lake Powell, first...

In our planet's early history, 720 to 640 million years ago, thick sheets of ice covered the majority of the surface, as the Earth was locked in a deep freeze. But explosive underwater volcanoes changed the chemistry of the Earth's oceans and were key to breaking the planet from its icy state, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Southampton believe underwater volcanoes helped to thaw out "Snowball Earth", and even led to runaway chemical chain reactions, which created the conditions for an explosion of life on Earth. While much of the driving forces behind glaciation during...

No boats required. In the distant future, most if not all of today's continents (brown fragments, depicted with current-day outlines) will assemble into a single landmass called Amasia (shown approximately 100 million years from now). Over the next few hundred million years, the Arctic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea will disappear, and Asia will crash into the Americas forming a supercontinent that will stretch across much of the Northern Hemisphere. That's the conclusion of a new analysis of the movements of these giant landmasses. Unlike in today's world, where a variety of tectonic plates move across Earth's surface carrying the...

A group of University of Wyoming professors and students has identified an unusual belt of igneous rocks that stretches for over 2,000 miles from British Columbia, Canada, through Idaho, Montana, Nevada, southeast California and Arizona to Sonora, Mexico. “Geoscientists usually associate long belts of igneous rocks with chains of volcanoes at subduction zones, like Mount Shasta, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainer,” says Jay Chapman, an assistant professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics. “What makes this finding so interesting and mysterious is that this belt of igneous rocks is located much farther inland, away from the...

The African LLSVP. (Ward et al., Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 2020) NATURE Vast Fragments of an Alien World Could Be Buried Deep Within Earth Itself PETER DOCKRILL24 MARCH 2021 They are among the largest and strangest of all structures on Earth: huge, mysterious blobs of dense rock lurking deep within the lowermost parts of our planet's mantle. There are two of these gigantic masses – called the large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) – with one buried under Africa, the other below the Pacific Ocean. These anomalies are so massive, they in turn breed their own disturbances, such as the large phenomenon currently...

Explanation: Was the oldest known rock on Earth found on the Moon? Quite possibly. The story opens with the Apollo 14 lunar mission. Lunar sample 14321, a large rock found in Cone crater by astronaut Alan Shepard, when analyzed back on Earth, was found to have a fragment that was a much better match to Earth rocks than other Moon rocks. Even more surprising, that rock section has recently been dated back 4 billion years, making it older, to within measurement uncertainty, than any rock ever found on Earth. A leading hypothesis now holds that an ancient comet or asteroid...