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The Moon

The Moon. What We See. Where We’ve Been. The Big Features. Oceanus (ocean) Maria (Mare) (sea) Craters Highlands – bright, cratered regions Lowlands/Maria – dark, flat regions. Other Features. Mountains Valleys. Librations. The result of

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The Moon

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  1. The Moon

  2. What We See

  3. Where We’ve Been

  4. The Big Features Oceanus (ocean) Maria (Mare) (sea) Craters Highlands – bright, cratered regions Lowlands/Maria – dark, flat regions

  5. Other Features Mountains Valleys

  6. Librations • The result of • wobbling of the Moon’s axis toward/away from earth • Relative motion of the observer as Earth rotates • Non-circularity of moon’s orbit (change in size)

  7. What’s it made of? I…am…IRON MOON Ti abundance (blue = lots, orange/purple = less) But…no dipolar magnetic field. The moon’s weak B field comes from magnetic minerals.

  8. The Real Dark Side of the Moon • Note which side the maria are on. • Why only that side? • Anorthosite: igneous rock rich in Ti, Fe • Basalt: fine-grained igneous rock caused by cooling magma

  9. Mascons

  10. Water? 1996: Clementine indicates ice in deep craters 1998: Lunar Prospector indicates ice 1998: LP crashed into surface; no water seen 2009: Moon Mineral Mapper aboard Chandrayaan-1 detects water Lunar Prospector measures neutrons from H Chandrayaan-1 (water in blue)

  11. LCROSS • Launched with LRO in 2008 • Atlas-Centaur rocket impactor targeted Cabeus crater • Impactor (2305 kg/10,000mph) produced ejecta plume • LCROSS probe flew through the plume and crashed, relaying data • Data indicate 5% of plume mass was water

  12. Where did the moon come from? • 4 theories • Fission (moon broke off from earth) • Sisterhood/Co-accretion (formed at the same time) • Capture (moon formed somewhere else but drifted by and ended up in the Earth’s gravitational field) • Giant Impactor (something hit the earth and the resulting material formed the moon)

  13. Which one is right? • Fission • Composition of E and M are similar, but not that similar. • Not enough mass in the Pacific Basin to account for the moon. 2. Sisterhood/Co-accretion • See #1 about composition. • E and M should be the same age; M is younger.

  14. Which one is right? 3. Capture • E and M are too similar for the moon to have formed elsewhere • Angular momentum of the E/M system isn’t right for the moon having flown in and stopped • 4. Giant Impactor • Given a Mars-sized impactor, mass is right • Volatile metals and lack of water on the moon indicate high temperatures in the past. • Simulations show it’s viable (angular momentum OK) • Lower density of moon, lack of iron are consistent with violent impact

  15. Whack-a-Moon t=0 • Eventually, the cloud becomes a disk and then a moon. • The impactor core becomes the moon’s core • Intense heat is consistent with lack of volatiles and lack of similarity to the earth. t=24h

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