Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jun 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000psrd.repte..40t&link_type=abstract
Planetary Science Research Discoveries
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Moon, Lunar, Maria, Titanium, Remote Sensing
Scientific paper
The lunar maria, the dark, smooth areas on the Moon, formed when lava flowed across the surface billions of years ago. Samples returned from the Moon by astronauts and by automated spacecraft suggested that the maria consist mostly of basalts with either low (less than about 5 wt%) or high (more than about 9 wt%) contents of titanium dioxide (TiO2). Scientists wondered why there were so few lava flows with intermediate titanium concentrations, and they invented some elaborate, interesting explanations. However, the samples came from only a few places on the Moon. Recently, Tom Giguere and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii used data from the Galileo and Clementine missions to evaluate the compositions of the maria over the entire lunar globe. Their results show that there are plenty of lava flows with intermediate amounts of TiO2; in fact, there is a continuous spectrum of titanium contents from low (most abundant) to high (least abundant). This gives a different view of the nature of the lunar interior, and is consistent with the idea that the Moon melted soon after it formed.
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