The Earth Moon is the closest neighbor of our planet in space, but it's great how even neighbors can keep secrets from each other. For years, astronomers believed the Moon was barren of water and other volatile compounds, but this notice began to change in 2008, when a team of planetary scientists announced that they had found a small amount of water confiscated in volcanic glass beads, the astronauts returned to Earth from Apollo 13 and 17 missions to our moon. In 2011, additional studies revealed extremely tiny crystal formulas in these beads, which indicates that they contained a quantity of water, similar to some basalts on Earth.
The prevailing theory of lunar education - Giant impact hypothesis - suggests that our moon was born as a result of a catastrophic collision between our fixed proto-earth and a doomed body the size of Mars, called Theia - and it is believed that this impact created a partially evaporated, extremely hot disc of material that circulated around our infant planet. Sometimes this primordial disk cooled and extremely amplified to form our Moon. In February 2018, a group of astronomers announced that their current research indicates that the Earth could be wetter than originally thought, which raises important questions about some aspects of this history of origin.
For a long time, planetary scientists believed that after a moon-forming collision, hydrogen dissociates from water molecules. According to this scenario, both water and other elements with a low boiling point (volatile elements) escaped from the disk and lost forever in space. This model would form a depleted and dry moon. At that time, this scenario seemed to be consistent with an earlier analysis of lunar samples.
But ongoing studies of lunar chemistry show that it can be much more humid than the planetary scientists originally anticipated. In fact, these wetter conditions contradict certain aspects. Giant impact theory.
“This is still a very important area of active research, which is why many scientists, including our researcher of the ground magnetism department Eric Hauri, as well as many other colleagues and graduates of Carnegie, find out how much water exists on the moon. This is a very important and difficult question to answer. , given that we have limited knowledge about the history and distribution of lunar water, ”explained Dr. Miki Nakajima on February 26, 2018 Press release of the Carnegie Institution. Dr. Nakajima, who is from the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, along with Caltech David Stevenson, decided to determine whether it was necessary to correct promising models of lunar formation to explain later higher estimates of the amount of water on Earth. Caltech is located in Pasadena.
Earth's closest neighbor
In July 2017, a group of astronomers announced that they used satellite data to search - for the first time - Icons of widespread water, hidden under the ancient volcanic material on Earth. Scientists discovery suggests that the inner part of our moon contains a large amount of local water. This abundant, but well-hidden water reveals its secret presence in numerous volcanic deposits, which were explosively distributed over the surface of our Moon, when ancient lunar volcanoes erupted. These initial sediments contain unusually large amounts of imputed water as compared to adjacent sites. It is believed that the detection of water in these lunar sediments consists of glass beads, formed as a result of an explosive fire eruption of magma, escaping from the depths of our Moon. This discovery confirms the theory that the lunar mantle is surprisingly damp.
The Earth's Moon is the fifth largest moon in our entire solar system, and also the only world outside our planet that we visited. Our lunar companion is the largest and brightest object in the sky at night, and many astronomers believe that he was born when the tragedy that was shredded Theia exploded in the ancient Earth billions of years ago. However, there are other theories that try to explain how our moon appeared. Nevertheless, Giant impact The theory serves as the most convincing explanation for the birth of the moon. When doomed, destroyed Theia hit the Earth, he shot trash over our planet. This bountiful trash has ever merged to form our moon.
Although Theia came to a tragic end, he did not die in vain. This is because the ill-fated Theia made life possible on earth. Our lunar satellite is responsible for creating a hospitable abode for sentient beings on our planet, because it softens the Earth's oscillation on its axis - thus creating a stable, life-friendly climate. The moon of the earth is also the source of the ocean tides that form the rhythm that has ruled people for thousands of years.
Until 1610, when Galileo Galileo discovered a quarter of large Galilean moons in orbit Jupiter-Io, Europe, Ganymede and Callisto - Earth The moon because it was only the moon is known to exist. Now we know differently. There are over 100 famous moons in our solar system, and perhaps many, many more, circling distant alien planets belonging to families of stars outside of our sun. Most moons in our solar system are relatively small, icy worldlets which contain only a small amount of stony material. The far multitude of sparkling, frozen moons that inhabit our Sun family are mainly found around a quarter of the outer gas giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In this dimly lit area, far from the sun star and the light, these tiny icy moons perform a strange and beautiful ballet around their large gas host planets. The quartet of the giant gas planets living in our suburbs of the Solar System is enveloped in heavy gas atmospheres and is accompanied by their travels around our Sun, their own orbital surroundings of moons and moons.
In dramatic contrast, the inner region of our solar system, where our Earth lives - along with Mercury, Venus and Mars - is relatively barren of moons. Mercury and Venus do not have moons, and Mars revolves around a small duet of deformed moons, Phobos and Deimos which are probably asteroids that escaped from Main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter billions of years ago - only to be captured by the powerful gravitational arms of the Red Planet. Our Earth is the only inner planet with an impressively large spherical Moon.
The moons are natural satellites that revolve around another body, which, in turn, twists its parent star. The moon is held in place both by its own gravity and by the gravitational capture of its host planet. On some planets there are moons; some not. Several asteroids in our solar system are also in orbit by very small moons - and some dwarf planets, such as Pluto, also have moons. One of the five moons of Pluto, Charon, makes up almost 50% of the size of Pluto. For this reason, the two frozen worlds inhabiting the remote twilight zone of the solar system are sometimes classified as double planet.
Our Moon is the only permanent natural satellite of the Earth. It is also the largest moon in our solar system relative to the size of its host planet. The second only to the volcanic rock of Jupiter Galilean moon , Io, our Moon is the densest natural satellite among those whose density has been determined.
Born about 4.51 billion years ago, the world of Earth satellites appeared shortly after the birth of our own planet in the original solar system. The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 238,000 miles (1.28 light-seconds), and it is blocked by synchronous rotation with the Earth - this means that it always shows us the same person. The near side of our moon is known for its mesmerizing dark volcanic Maria (Latin for seas ), which are located between the large impact craters, as well as its very ancient, bright crust. The lunar surface is really very dark - although it seems very bright in the night sky above our planet - with a reflection only slightly higher than that of the old asphalt. The prominence of our lunar companion in the dark midnight sky, as well as its rhythmic and regular cycle of phases, have made our moon an important influence on human culture since ancient times, especially in mythology, art, language and calendar.
Earth Moon completes the orbit around our planet every 27 days, and it rotates (rotates) at the same speed. Because the Earth is also moving - rotating on its axis when it turns our Star - from our point of view, our lunar satellite seems to revolve around us every 29 days.
In addition to Giant impact theory, there are several other models that have been proposed to explain how our moon was born. One alternative model Giant impact the scenario assumes that the Earth-to-Earth was once part of our planet, which simply came to its senses when our solar system was in its infancy — about 4.5 billion years ago. According to this model, the Pacific basin would be the most likely cradle for the birth of the moon. The second model assumes that our Moon really was born somewhere in our Solar System and, like a duet of tiny potato martian moons, was actually captured by a gravity tug of a large planet. The third theory says that both the Earth and the Moon were born at about the same time. protoplanetary accretion disk consisting of gas and dust, from which our family of planets of the sun, moons and smaller objects originated.
The fourth, later model is based on the existence of synestia , synestia is a donut-shaped cloud consisting of evaporated molten rock. It is believed that this newly discovered inhabitant of the Universe is formed when bodies the size of a planet catastrophically explode with each other with high energy and angular momentum. Shortly after the discovery of these plump celestial “donuts” in 2017, the planetary scientists realized that they might have a new way to explain the birth of the moon. Ancient clashes that create synestia , so strong that the objects that form from these cosmic catastrophes melt and partially evaporate. Ultimately, after they have cooled enough to solidify, they create (almost) spherical planets, for example, inhabiting our own solar system.
Earth Moon has a raw secret
A study in February 2018 by Carnegie and JPL astronomers developed detailed scenarios to determine if there are existing theories about catastrophic Giant impact The theory may explain the wet moon, which is still being depleted in other volatile elements, such as sodium and potassium.
Scientists modeled the various temperatures and abundance of water that could be present in the lunar birth disk , At higher temperatures them disk mainly consisted of silicate vapors formed as a result of evaporation of the mantles of both the proto-Earth and the doomed Theia , disk at these higher temperatures, relatively small amounts of hydrogen dissociated from water are also contained. On the contrary, at lower temperatures their disk mainly consisted of water, from which hydrogen did not dissociate in this temperature range of the cooler, therefore its exit mechanism is very inefficient.
"The good news is that our models show that observations of the wet Moon are not incompatible with Giant impact origin ”, explained Dr. Nakajima on February 26, 2018 Press release of the Carnegie Institution.
But, New discoveries also mean that scientists must come up with other explanations for why the Earth Moon is depleted from potassium, sodium and other volatile elements. Additional explanations for this exist. One possible alternative explanation is that the volatile elements contained in disk lowered to the proto-Earth instead of running away or being part of the lunar formation. Another explanation is that these volatile elements were part of our moon when it first appeared after the collisions. disk but were later lost.
New research published Letters about the Earth and planetary sciences.
