Scientists have confirmed what is hidden in the heart of the moon

Although the moon is the closest celestial body to Earth, its interior has been an area of ​​disagreement and disagreement in the scientific community, with some claiming that its core is solid and others that it is liquid. Now, a comprehensive study puts an end to the scenarios and shows that its core is a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron.

Our results challenge the evolution of the Moon’s magnetic field by providing evidence for the existence of the inner core and supporting a lunar mantle-reversal scenario that provides fundamental insights into the timing of lunar bombardment in the first billion years of the solar system’s life. – Arthur Brioud, astronomer at the French National Center for Scientific Research

By studying seismic data, and the way earthquakes produce sound waves and travel through the material inside a celestial body, scientists can produce a detailed map of the body’s interior. The seismic data we got from the Apollo missions was too low resolution to accurately determine what the lunar core is made of. We knew there was a liquid outer core, but what lies beneath has remained a mystery. Moreover, the computational models cannot give us a clear answer, because they work equally well with both a liquid and a solid core.

Scientists combined data from various lunar space missions to compile a profile of various lunar properties, such as the degree of distortion by Earth’s gravitational interaction, its changing distance from Earth, and its density. Then they built many models with different types of cores to see which one best matched the observational data.

So they found that the models closest to what we already know about the moon wanted the denser material to move towards the center of the moon and the less dense material to move towards its surface. They also found that the core of the moon is very similar to the core of the Earth. That is, it has a liquid outer shell and a solid inner core. According to the models, the radius of the outer core of the moon is 362 kilometers and the radius of the solid inner core is 258 kilometers, accounting for 15% of the total radius of the moon. The density of the moon’s inner core is 7822 kilograms per cubic meter, which is very close to the density of iron.

We also know that shortly after its formation, the Moon had a strong magnetic field that it began losing, about 3.2 billion years ago. The magnetic field is produced by the movement of the core and thermal transformation, so the material that makes up the moon’s core is very important for learning how and why the magnetic field disappeared.

Research published in nature.

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