AstroGeo22 tagged posts

New Findings Suggest Moon may have Less Water than Previously Thought

Graph with colored patches showings the extent of PSRs 3.3 billion years ago (red), 2.1 billion years ago (green) and close to present-day (blue) with current topography
Courtesy of Schörghofer/Rufu The scientists used AstroGeo22 and LOLA height measurements to calculate the age of the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions near its poles. Colored patches show the extent of PSRs 3.3 billion years ago (red), 2.1 billion years ago (green) and close to present-day (blue) with current topography. These findings suggest that current estimates for cold-trapped ices are too high.

Moon’s permanently shadowed regions are younger than previously estimated. A team including Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Raluca Rufu recently calculated that most of the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are at most around 3.4 billion years old and can contain relatively young deposits of water ice...

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