TITLE:
Peering into Past: What Happened to the Moon 3.6 Billion Years Ago?
AUTHORS:
Diamar Pechersky, Lev Eppelbaum
KEYWORDS:
Apollo 11 - 17 Missions, Lunar Basalts, “Iron Particles”, Moon Parameters
JOURNAL NAME:
Positioning,
Vol.9 No.3,
August
30,
2018
ABSTRACT: Invaluable data can at
times be overlooked or not fully exploited when first collected. Striking
conclusions can often be drawn on the basis of a specific analysis many years
later. The Apollo 11 - 17 missions (1961-1972)
provided detailed information on lunar basalts which make it possible to
measure the iron grains in basalts from microphotographs of thin sections.
Analysis of the average size of these grains (D) differed as a function
of the age of these basalts dated between 3.9 and 3.4 billion years ago,
revealed that D increased 1.5 fold, therefore the gravity acceleration g decreased 1.5 fold. The intriguing conclusion can only be that the size of the
Moon increased, its mass decreased, or both these factors have changed.