Mystery of the Dark Side of the Moon - Will New Clues Point to a Massive Impact?

It sounds like a Buck Rogers plot, or a rave remix of Pink Floyd, but it's the very latest news from our very nearest astronomical neighbor. The Japanese SELENE mission (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer) has probed the far side of the moon in unprecedented detail.  The effects will be felt in lunar research for years, but the first headline you'll hear about is the negative gravity disturbance rings.

Now that definitely sounds like something Electra, Queen of the Lunar Amazon Women, would apply to Buck before being seduced.  It's important not to get overexcited - here "negative anomaly" simply means that there's less gravity than average, not that there are anti-gravity sites hidden where we couldn't see them until now.  These rings surround small zones of positive gravity anomalies, unlike anything we've seen on the near side, and offer brand new information on the formation of the moon.

It seems that the two sides of the moon have evolved differently since their formation, with the far side forming at cooler temperatures and remaining stiffer while the Earth side has been modified at higher temperatures and for longer.  This information is extremely important for theories on the formation of the moon, of which the current favorite is the "Giant Impact" hypothesis aka "If Michael Bay and Joel Schumacher were hired to co-direct God."

The Giant Impact idea is that four and a half billion years ago a planet the size of Mars rammed Earth, kicking enough debris into orbit to accrete into an entirely new body, Mr Moon.  You'd think something like that would leave evidence more visible than gravitational mapping of the dark side of a satellite, but don't worry: we'll get there.

Luke McKinney.

Science, reference 10.1126/science.1170655

Comments

[fcaltai]

Mr. McKinney's metaphors and jokes are distracting and annoying for some readers sometimes. "More" is not necessarily "better".

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

fcaltai:

I quite agree. Whilst I appreciate clever wit & creativity, this should not turn into a Leno monologue mixed with the National Enquirer.

MOVING ON -

The " Dark " side of the moon has shown a much rougher, ruggeder, downright harsher terrain for the most part than the side that we can see. That, & the fact that can't normally see that side of the moon from Earth, indicate a massive impact of some kind in the history of the Earth / Moon system.

This is adding to the GROWING store of knowledge about the neighbour worlds of our Solar System. In the words of another contributor in another article - about the Tunguska Impact's cause - this is like " forensic astronomy ".

[foxtrot470]

There's no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

/ obligatory

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

foxtrot470:

The Moon is totally dark ?
Then how come we can see 1 hemisphere of the Moon, while 1 is hidden from our prying except when a spacecraft flies around it & over it ?

[sohbet]

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