Latest news with #VallisSchrödinger
BBC News
06-02-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Moon asteroid collision formed two huge craters within minutes
A new study by scientists suggests that an asteroid impact on the Moon blasted two huge craters within a matter of minutes. Located close to the Moon's south pole, their sizes have been compared with that of the Grand Canyon in the US state of unlike Earth's natural wonder, which was carved through millions of years of erosion - the two lunar craters are thought to have taken just ten minutes to think they were dug out by rocky debris after the surface was struck around 3.8 billion years ago. What did scientists discover on the Moon? The two craters - called Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck - are hidden on the far side of the Moon, the side which always faces away from are located close to the lunar south pole, which is where Nasa are planning on landing astronauts during the Artemis III Schrödinger is around 170 miles long and 1.7 miles deep, while Vallis Planck is a similar length and 2.2 miles international group of scientists used images and data of the area, as captured by Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This allowed the team to draw up maps of the region, and work out the speed and size of the material that hit the moon 3.8 billion years calculated that debris travelled at speeds of around 1 kilometre per second and that the biggest chunks were 3.2 miles say that the information they've gathered could help experts decide where to take samples from the lunar surface during the next human and robot-crewed missions to the Moon.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Bullet-fast moon rocks carved 2 lunar gorges deeper than the Grand Canyon
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Two gigantic canyons on the moon — both deeper than the Grand Canyon — were carved in less than 10 minutes by floods of rocks traveling as fast as bullets, a new study finds. Scientists analyzed the lunar canyons, named Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck, to find that these huge valleys measure 167 miles long (270 kilometers) and nearly 1.7 miles (2.7 km) deep, and 174 miles long (280 km) and nearly 2.2 miles deep (3.5 km), respectively. In comparison, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long (446 km) and is, at most, about 1.2 miles deep (1.9 km), the researchers noted. "The lunar landscape is dramatic," David Kring, a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute of the Universities Space Research Association, told "In the lunar south polar region, there are mountains that exceed Mt. Everest in height and canyons that exceed the Grand Canyon in depth. Future lunar surface explorers will be awed." This pair of lunar canyons represents two of many valleys radiating out from Schrödinger basin, a crater about 200 miles wide (320 km) that was blasted out of the lunar crust by a cosmic impact about 3.81 billion years ago. This structure is located in the outer margin of the moon's largest and oldest remaining impact crater, the South Pole–Aitken basin, which measures about 1,490 miles wide (2,400 km) and dates about 4.2 billion to 4.3 billion years old. Kring and his colleagues investigated the Schrödinger basin for potential landing sites for future robotic and human lunar missions. They analyzed photos from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to better understand how Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck formed, generating maps from these images of the moon's surface to calculate the direction and speed of debris expelled from the collision that created Schrödinger basin. The scientists estimate that rocky debris flew out from the impact at speeds between 2,125 to 2,860 miles per hour (3,420 to 4,600 km/h). In comparison, a bullet from a 9mm Luger handgun might fly at speeds of about 1,360 mph (2,200 km/h). The researchers suggest the energy needed to create both of these canyons would have been more than 130 times the energy in the current global inventory of nuclear weapons. "The lunar canyons we describe are produced by streams of rock, whereas the Grand Canyon was produced by a river of water," Kring said. "The streams of rock were far more energetic than the river of water, which is why the lunar canyons were produced in minutes and the Grand Canyon produced over millions of years." Related Stories: — Moon rock revelations could solve lingering lunar geology puzzle — Is the moon still geologically active? Evidence says it's possible — The moon may be 100 million years older than we thought The angle at which the collision occurred led the resulting debris to scatter in an uneven manner around the Schrödinger basin, with less material covering the area closer to the South Pole–Aitken basin. With less debris covering this ancient region, astronauts that land there "will find it easier to collect samples from the earliest epoch of the moon," Kring said. The scientists detailed their findings in a paper published on Feb. 4 in the journal Nature Communications.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
10 Minutes of Violence Gave The Moon Its Very Own 'Grand Canyons'
Arizona's magnificent Grand Canyon is painstaking result of the Colorado River's current wearing away the planet's surface over millions of years. Earth, however, isn't the only body in the Solar System with canyons and gorges. The Moon has structures comparable to Earth's Grand Canyon; although, in the absence of liquid water, their formation mechanism has been difficult to determine. Now, scientists believe that they have figured it out. Two huge canyons scored into the surface of the Moon were created in the wake of a giant impact – and, in stark and jaw-dropping contrast to the Grand Canyon, their creation could have taken less than 10 minutes. The two canyons in question, known as Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck, can be found radiating away from an impact basin known as the Schrödinger crater on the lunar far side, near the south pole. These things are huge – measuring 270 kilometers (168 miles) long and 2.7 kilometers deep, and 280 kilometers long and 3.5 kilometers deep, respectively. The Grand Canyon on Earth is longer, at 446 kilometers, but shallower, at 1.86 kilometers. Such gouges, known as ejecta rays, can form when huge chunks of material are thrown by an impact event. But a team led by planetary scientist David Kring of the US Lunar and Planetary Institute wanted to really narrow down the formation process of these enormous canyons. Kring and his colleagues combined photos of the Moon's surface to generate maps of the direction and distribution of the sprayed ejecta resulting from the Schrödinger impact. They then used this information to reverse engineer the impact itself, reconstructing the ejecta spray. The team found that the impact was asymmetrical, with most of the ejecta distributed away from the lunar south pole. And it was intense. The material that created Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck was traveling between 0.95 and 1.28 kilometers per second. The impact energy required to produce this fallout, the researchers say, is around 130 times the energy contained in the entire global inventory of nuclear weapons. The upcoming Artemis III lunar mission will be visiting the lunar far side, near the south pole, although the exact landing site has yet to be determined. The astronauts will not be in significant danger from huge impacts; the Schrödinger impact is estimated to have occurred 3.8 billion years ago, when there were a lot more large rocks flying around. Rather, the results have implications for lunar exploration. The team's models suggest that the impact ejecta was mostly sprayed away from the proposed Artemis landing sites, which means that the explorers may have better access to the older, underlying minerals they want to study. The launch is currently scheduled for 2027. When the mission arrives, what the Artemis crew finds will undoubtedly reveal more about how and when this huge impact unfolded. The research has been published in Nature Communications. Astrophysicist Reveals The Key Facts About The Asteroid That May Hit Earth AI Can Predict Incredible Solar Storms Before They Strike Check Out These Amazing Photos of Comet G3 ATLAS Soaring Past Earth
