Tom Wood
Scientists have discovered a gigantic metal ‘structure’ up on the moon, and are now trying to work out exactly what it is.
It’s probably not an alien space base or anything like that, before you start to wonder whether we’ve just been being observed for millennia like ants.
It’s more likely that the metal… thing - whatever it is - occurred naturally, although it is still incredibly weird and interesting.
It also rams home the fact that even though we’ve been up to the moon a few times, there’s still plenty up there that might surprise us, and that we know precious little about.
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This area of metal is absolutely massive, too.
It is buried underneath the moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, which is a massive crater and one of the largest preserved within our solar system.
The structure weighs in at more than 2.18 billion kilograms, and measures in at more than 300 kilometers in depth and 2,000 kilometers in length.
That’s 186 miles deep and 1,243 miles long for those working in different measurements.
The US-based scientists who made the discovery reckon that the ‘anomaly’ - as they called it - could be left over from an asteroid or oxides from the crystallisation of a magma ocean.
Sounds cool, right?
Basically, that theory seems to suggest that an asteroid which struck the crater embedded itself into the moon, which is not in the least absolutely terrifying.
The lead author of this research, Peter B. James from Baylor University in Houston, released a statement that said: "One of the explanations of this extra mass is that the metal from the asteroid that formed this crater is still embedded in the Moon's mantle.”
Discussing the size of the metal area, he added: “Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground.
“That's roughly how much unexpected mass we detected.”
Yikes.
The fascinating find was made possible by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which keeps an eye on the moon’s gravitational field, collecting data that can then be used to study the moon’s internal make-up.
The South Pole-Aitken basin is of particular interest, simply because of the unique nature of it, and - now - the fact that there’s a massive load of metal buried beneath it.
No doubt they’ll be focusing more and more attention on it after this latest discovery.
There’s still a great deal that we don’t know about our closest neighbour in the solar system.