The Moon is not a perfect sphere but rather has a shape similar to a lemon, according to a new study by a team of researchers from the University of California in Santa Cruz (USA), who have discovered the reason why our natural satellite It has that little deformity around it .
The study calculated the effect of rotational forces and gravitational tides on the shape of the early Moon. Thus, they discovered that the gravitational force exerted by the Earth and its own turns, caused the shape of the Moon to not be totally spherical .
"It is spinning very slowly, and it is really far from Earth, so it is not likely that the current tidal forces are causing that, " Ian Gerrick-Bethell, leader of the study, told Nature magazine.
When did this happen then? When the Moon was mostly liquid, covered by a thin crust of rock and was much closer to our planet, so the gravitational tides were stronger and the turns of the Moon were also faster. Both circumstances would flex and pull that thin crust, fixing the irregularities of the exterior that we currently see. Which gave it the “lemon shape”.
