How was the Moon formed? According to the most accepted theory and that has the evidence of NASA as a result of the Apollo missions, the moon was formed by the collision of a supposed protoplanet the size of Mars, called Tea, and the Earth itself in formation. This event threw hot material into orbit, which eventually coalesced into our only natural satellite, the Moon approximately 4.5 billion years ago. However, a new study published in Science Advances questions that it was all as simple as this high-impact theory.
The study examined the moon’s global carbon emissions. The collision or large impact theory is based on the fact that the Moon was “dry”, without carbon, due to its fiery formation , but a spacecraft orbiting the Moon has detected something really peculiar: our satellite is emitting a constant stream of carbon ions from almost its entire surface, contrary to this belief that the moon does not have carbon and other volatile elements. The results come from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) KAGUYA orbiter, named after the lunar princess from one of the oldest Japanese folk tales. The Kaguya probe spent a year and a half in orbit around the Moon a decade ago, collecting global mapping observations. And one of his instruments was an ion mass spectrometer that has found traces of carbon and volatile water in volcanic lunar crystals.
Where did the carbon come from?
Scientists believe that the amount of volatile carbon generated during the supposed great impact with Tea should have been vaporized by the intense temperatures (3,500-5,800 ºC), but these findings say otherwise, that the carbon has been there since the formation of the Moon. It is time to reconsider the origins of the Moon again.
“These emissions were distributed over almost the entire lunar surface, but the amounts were different with respect to the lunar geographic areas,” say the researchers.
The Japanese spacecraft observed a regional emissions difference; about 51,000 carbon ions per square centimeter every second in the lunar “seas”, or maria as they are called (Latin for seas), and slightly lower, about 45,000 ions in the highlands.
“Our estimates show that carbon exists throughout the moon, supporting the hypothesis of a carbon-containing moon, where carbon was embedded in its formation and / or transported billions of years ago.”
According to experts, Kaguya used an ion mass spectrometer to find fluxes in carbon ions too large for the solar wind to have transported them or through small meteorites called ‘micrometeoroids’, both mechanisms known to supply the Moon with small amounts of carbon.
Is the big shock theory wrong?
Taking into account that carbon has a considerable influence on the formation and evolution of planetary bodies, this finding requires the modification of the impact hypothesis to explain the existence of abundant carbon on the Moon. But it does not mean that it is incorrect, but that it must be expanded or revised to include precisely this idea that the Moon may be “wet”, richer in light substances such as water or carbon.
Referencia: Shoichiro Yokota et al. KAGUYA observation of global emissions of indigenous carbon ions from the Moon, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba1050
