moon

Moon and Earth have common water source
05/10/2013 - 11:29

Researchers used a multicollector ion microprobe to study hydrogen-deuterium ratios in lunar rock and on Earth. Their conclusion: The Moon’s water did not come from comets but was already present on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, when a giant collision sent material from Earth to form the Moon.

 

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Pre-existing mineralogy may survive lunar impacts
04/02/2013 - 12:36

 Large impacts on the Moon can form wide craters and turn surface rock liquid. Geophysicists once assumed that liquid rock would be homogenous when it cooled. Now researchers have found  evidence that pre-existing mineralogy can survive impact melt.

 

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Proof at last: Moon was created in giant smashup
10/17/2012 - 14:06

It’s a big claim, but Washington University in St. Louis planetary scientist Frédéric Moynier says his group has discovered evidence that the Moon was born in a flaming blaze of glory when a body the size of Mars collided with the early Earth.

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Giant ice avalanches on Iapetus provide clue to extreme slippage elsewhere in the solar system
07/30/2012 - 13:13

“We see landslides everywhere in the solar system,” says Kelsi Singer, graduate student in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, “but Saturn’s icy moon Iapetus has more giant landslides than any body other than Mars.”

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River networks on Titan point to a puzzling geologic history
07/20/2012 - 14:36

For many years, Titan's thick, methane- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere kept astronomers from seeing what lies beneath. Saturn's largest moon appeared through telescopes as a hazy orange orb, in contrast to other heavily cratered moons in the solar system.

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Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
07/12/2012 - 11:41

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.  “The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls,” said team lead Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

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