A view of two large canyons on the radiant moon of the Schrödinger basin
NASASVSENNIE T. WRIGHT
A vast impact crater near the southern pole of the moon was formed by an asteroid moving more than one kilometer per second, releasing energy when he struck the equivalent to 130 times that of all the nuclear weapons that exist. Now, the researchers say that two unusually narrow and rights canyons escape from its center have been formed in less than 10 minutes by a chain of secondary debris impacts.
David around At Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, sought the 312 -kilometer Schrödinger crater for 15 years. Part of this was to develop possible landing sites for the NASA constellation program – which sought to return people to the moon, but was finished in 2009. The canyons that are wiped there long fascinated it.
“They are fundamentally hidden, in a way mysterious, because they are on the other side (of the moon),” explains Kring. “And so they are generally neglected.”
To find out more, Kring and his colleagues have now used computer models to study the origin of two canyons, or “rays”, which extend north of the crater. One is Vallis Schrödinger, which measures 270 kilometers long and 2.7 km deep, while the second, Vallis Planck, measures 280 km and 3.5 km deep. For comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona measures 446 km long and up to 1.9 km deep.
But while it was sculpted by water over millions of years, the lunar canyons are clear, straight grooves formed by vast impact forces in less than 10 minutes, Kring explains. The dramatic strike of asteroids would have spread the dust and the rubble on the entire surface of the moon, but also in space and on earth.
The researchers suggest that he would also have resulted in debris through the lunar surface quickly enough to cause craters outside the principal, and they could have been concentrated on narrow regions by irregularities in the regolith, the loose material that covers the moon.
With their models, the researchers calculated that an impact on asteroids about 3.81 billion years ago would have been able to create the required speed and management of debris to create canyons.
“You have a rock that strikes one kilometer per second, maybe 2 kilometers per second, and this can be devastating,” explains Kring. “We knew that Schrödinger's impact had produced these rays, but the processes involved … needed detailed attention.”
Kring says that the results will be reassuring for the mission of Artemis III of NASA to put astronauts the moon In the South Pole region, because Schrödinger's ejected regolith will not be deep enough in any of the landing points offered to seriously hinder geology experiences. If they had planned to start north of Schrödinger, where many more equipment landed, they would have faced an extremely deep layer which masked previous geology.
A view of canyons looking directly on the surface of the moon
NASASVSENNIE T. WRIGHT
Mark Burchell At the University of Kent, in the United Kingdom, says that research proves that canyons are formed by impact channels, but that it would certainly require a close investigation.
“The ultimate proof would be that someone brings back a rock from one of these canyons or a few rocks,” said Buchell. “Then you cut them and there will be grains of minerals that have been shocked (by impacts), and some of them have changed their structure accordingly.”
