Scientists have discovered that more and more craters are appearing on the surface of the moon. This new research alarmed astronomers who tend to believe that new holes show that the number of space rocks hitting the moon increased. Scientists become worried concerning the future missions on the moon. The moon has a huge amount of craters, some of which appeared billions of years ago.
- With the help of NASA’s orbiter, astronomers analyzed the formation of craters along the years.
- They managed to see how the craters’ size grew when hit by space rocks.
Considering the fact that our natural satellite has no atmosphere, it gets frequently hit by space rocks which find no obstacle in their way. Thus, the moon’s surface is continually predisposed to cosmic impacts that are gradually damaging it. The studies which were conducted in the past show the evolution of the craters which helped astronomers find more about the featureswoolrich mantel of the surface.
The data which was gathered came in handy to scientists who determined that the crust of the moon could be in danger if a possible bombardment were to occur during a mission. To ascertain the validity of the information assembled by now, a group of researchers examined the lunar surface in 14,000 images captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The pictures which were documented covered approximately 2.49 million square kilometers.
LRO’s images were able to reveal how craters developed gradually, becoming bigger and bigger as the space rocks hit. Emerson Speyerer, who is a planetary scientist at the Arizona State University at Tempe, claimed that, at first, when he and his team starting analyzing the captures, they couldn’t tell which were the new craters because they weren’t able to differentiate them from their surroundings.
When analyzing images through comparisons, specialists managed to delimit the small changes which appeared in the lunar crust over the years. They have revealed that 222 craters have appeared since the first captures were first registered by LRO. The biggest ones measured 10 meters across and were 43 meters wide. The broad areas around the craters represented the debris which remained after the impact of several space rocks.
The cratering process was estimated to crash and remove 2 centimeters of the lunar regolith much faster than astronomers had previously thought. Speyerer argued that they are thrilled Woolrich Mantel to see the gradual changes that illustrate how the regolith was smashed and dislocated a hundred times faster that they believed. Hopefully, more significant information about the moon will soon be discovered with the help of LRO.
Image courtesy of: pixabay