Our natural satellite – the Moon – has been explored in detail since the so-called space race between the USA and the former Soviet Union.
In this historical context, the USA won the race and managed to send the first man to the moon and a striking phrase of this scientific landmark was “a small step for man, but a big step for humanity".
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Over the years and the advancement of science, which goes hand in hand with technology, the Moon continued to be explored. With this, we discovered many of its characteristics.
It is possible to know, for example, that, just as the Earth, the Moon has interior layers that resemble our core, mantle and crust. Like the blue planet, the natural satellite is rocky.
In addition to rocks, the celestial object in question is made up of minerals and its crust contains elements such as aluminum, oxygen, iron and magnesium. At this point, it is important to mention that one of the differences is that there is no protective atmospheric layer.
The common element between the planets and the natural satellite
The discoveries about the Moon don't stop there, the element responsible for the red pigmentation of our neighbor Mars was found on the lunar surface. It turns out that this element, which is hematite, develops because of reactions with air and water.
(Image: Shuai Li/University of Hawaii)
Among so many similarities mentioned, you can notice that there was nothing mentioning air and water on the Moon, so the presence of hematite is a real enigma for scientists.
Planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Shuai Li points out that the lunar environment is terrible for the formation of hematite.
Hydrogen should act as a reducing agent for this element, but since this is not happening, the Moon is rusting! In other words, this means stating that the Moon is undergoing an oxidation process.
How did scientists discover the oxidation of the Moon?
Lunar hematite was identified thanks to the Indian space probe Chandrayaan-1, which carries an instrument called the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3).
M3 uses spectroscopic imaging to examine minerals on the Moon's surface in detail. With this, Li and his team were able to detect the presence of ice at the lunar poles in 2018.
While analyzing this data from the polar regions, they noticed spectral patterns that differed from what was expected.
Intrigued, Li began to investigate whether reactions between water and rocks could be occurring on the Moon. After a period of research, he identified the spectral signature of hematite.
Interestingly, hematite is most abundant on the side of the Moon that always faces Earth. He then suggested that this could be linked to Earth, possibly because oxygen from the upper atmosphere was transported to the lunar surface via the solar wind.
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