A bizarre 'decapitated' asteroid likely made the moon's largest impact crater. NASA's Artemis astronauts may land near the proof
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A violent impact that carved out the moon's largest impact basin may have scattered deep lunar material near the lunar south pole — right where NASA plans to send Artemis astronauts.
A new study suggests the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) basin, an impact crater more than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide on the moon's far side, was likely created by a differentiated asteroid. The findings might answer some of science's biggest questions about the SPA's creation — and they could have major implications for future lunar exploration.
The SPA basin is one of the moon's most scientifically valuable impact structures because it may expose material excavated from deep within the moon's mantle. Scientists have long debated exactly how the basin formed, including the size, speed and direction of the impactor.
Using high-resolution 3D simulations, a team of researchers led by Shigeru Wakita of Purdue University found that SPA's distinctive tapered-ellipse shape is best explained by a 160-mile-wide (260-kilometer-wide) differentiated impactor — a large asteroid that had already separated into a dense iron core and a rocky outer layer, much like a tiny planet. It struck the moon traveling north to south at around eight miles per second (13 kilometers per second) at a shallow 30-degree angle, the researchers say.
https://www.yahoo.com/news...
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A violent impact that carved out the moon's largest impact basin may have scattered deep lunar material near the lunar south pole — right where NASA plans to send Artemis astronauts.
A new study suggests the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) basin, an impact crater more than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide on the moon's far side, was likely created by a differentiated asteroid. The findings might answer some of science's biggest questions about the SPA's creation — and they could have major implications for future lunar exploration.
The SPA basin is one of the moon's most scientifically valuable impact structures because it may expose material excavated from deep within the moon's mantle. Scientists have long debated exactly how the basin formed, including the size, speed and direction of the impactor.
Using high-resolution 3D simulations, a team of researchers led by Shigeru Wakita of Purdue University found that SPA's distinctive tapered-ellipse shape is best explained by a 160-mile-wide (260-kilometer-wide) differentiated impactor — a large asteroid that had already separated into a dense iron core and a rocky outer layer, much like a tiny planet. It struck the moon traveling north to south at around eight miles per second (13 kilometers per second) at a shallow 30-degree angle, the researchers say.
https://www.yahoo.com/news...
27 days ago
