Our closest cosmic neighbor is also a great cosmic mystery. It has power over us, exerting mysterious influences that have profoundly impacted our history and impacts the lives of every one of us every day. But what is the moon? Is the scientific theory that the moon is the result of a huge impact with Earth by a Mars-sized object billions of years ago correct? If not, then where did it come from?read more
The Earth may once have had two moons. If so, what happened to the other one?
There’s another theory that says we may STILL have two suns (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show).
NASA’s GRAIL mission launched a lunar probe in 2011 to try to find remnants of a second moon, buried beneath the surface of the moon we see at night.
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If there was water on the moon, we could colonize it (and take an elevator there). Well, there just may be: Traces of water have been detected within the crystalline structure of mineral samples from the lunar highland upper crust obtained during the Apollo missions.
The lunar highlands are thought to represent the original crust, crystallized from a magma ocean on a mostly molten early moon. Over the last five years, spacecraft observations and new lab measurements of Apollo lunar samples have overturned the long-held belief that the moon is bone-dry. The new findings indicate that the early moon was wet and that water there was not substantially lost during the moon’s formation.
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Research on an ancient lunar rock suggests that almost 4 billion years ago, the moon once had a molten, core of liquid metal that generated a strong magnetic field.
The Daily Galaxy quotes planetary scientist Benjamin Weiss as saying, "The moon has this protracted history that’s surprising."
In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission brought the first lunar rocks back to Earth as souvenirs from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic moonwalk. Since then, scientists have studied them for clues to the moon’s history. They soon discovered that many rocks were magnetized, which suggested that the moon may have harbored a convecting metallic core that produced a large magnetic field, now recorded in the moon’s rocks.
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