The South Pole-Aitken basin is the darker area at the bottom of this image.
Credit: Photo by NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterScientific Visualization Studio
A large basin on the moon has revealed that its interior is made of a different mineral than Earth’s interior, contradicting the theory that the interior of the planets look mostly the same. The mantle of the Earth is made mostly of a mineral called olivine, and the assumption is usually that all planets are like the Earth,” said Jay Melosh, Distinguished Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, who led the study. “But when we look at the spectral signature of rocks exposed deep below the moon’s surface, we don’t see olivine; we see orthopyroxene.”
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