Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

The moon may be 40 million years older than we thought

By

A recent study has suggested that the moon may be much older than previously thought. Researchers working on samples collected by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972 have performed an analysis that suggests the moon may be as much as 4.46 billion years old, which is 40 million years older than previous estimates.

The research was performed on zircon crystals, which are small trace mineral crystals found with the sample of dusty material from the moon’s surface, called regolith. “This study is a testament to immense technological progress we have made since 1972 when the last manned moon mission returned to Earth,” said one of the researchers, Dieter Isheim of Northwestern University, in a statement. “These samples were brought to Earth half-a-century ago, but only today do we have the necessary tools to perform microanalysis at the requisite level, including atom-probe tomography.”

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt collects a sample from the Moon in 1972
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt collects a sample from the Moon in 1972 NASA

The analysis works by counting individual atoms within a sample to see which of them has undergone radioactive decay. The time that it takes for particular elements to decay is well-known, so by looking at the proportions of decay and undecayed atoms, researchers can estimate the age of a sample.

Recommended Videos

“Radiometric dating works a little bit like an hourglass,” explained lead researcher Philipp Heck of the Field Museum. “In an hourglass, sand flows from one glass bulb to another, with the passage of time indicated by the accumulation of sand in the lower bulb. Radiometric dating works similarly by counting the number of parent atoms and the number of daughter atoms they have transformed to. The passage of time can then be calculated because the transformation rate is known.”

Related

The researchers found crystals dated as old as 4.46 billion years, suggesting that the moon is older than the previous estimates of 4.42 billion years’ age, a finding that is supported by some other previous research. The moon is thought to have formed when an enormous object as large as Mars crashed into the Earth, sending off a chunk of material that became the moon. This event is thought to have been important for the formation of life on Earth, as the moon helps to stabilize the climate by stabilizing the tilt of our planet.

The research is published in Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
NASA astronauts will try to grow plants on the moon
An artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface.

An artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface. NASA

It was almost a decade ago when astronauts aboard the International Space Station sat down for a meal of historical significance as it was the first to include food -- albeit only lettuce -- grown and harvested in space.

Read more
Meet NASA’s trio of mini moon rovers set to launch next year
Part of NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration, three small rovers that will explore the Moon together show off their ability to drive as a team autonomously – without explicit commands from engineers – during a test in a clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in December 2023.

NASA is ramping up its plans for exploring the moon, not only in terms of preparing to send astronauts there but also rovers. There's the VIPER rover, which will search for water around the lunar south pole, and now NASA is introducing a trio of mini rovers called CADRE, or Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration. These will work together as a team to map the lunar surface, testing the possibilities of using rovers in groups for future exploration.

The rovers, developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are just the size of a carry-on suitcase. They are designed to move independently but share data so they can cover more ground than a single rover could. They'll have to work over a lunar day, which is about two weeks, to map out features on the surface and look below ground using radar.

Read more
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa may be light on oxygen, lowering habitability hopes
This view of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa was captured by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during the mission’s close flyby on Sept. 29, 2022.

When scientists look out into the solar system for places other than Earth that might be capable of hosting life, one of the leading locations of interest is Jupiter's moon Europa. Even though it is far from the sun and it appears on the surface to be icy and inhospitable, it has a liquid water ocean located beneath a thick icy crust, which could potentially allow for life to survive there. However, new research pours some cold water on this possibility, as it seems that the moon produces less oxygen than previously thought.

Researchers used data from the Juno mission to Jupiter, which has also performed flybys of Europa, to see how much hydrogen was being released from the moon's surface. Measured using Juno's Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument, this data can be used to estimate how much oxygen is being produced -- and it's thought to be just 26 pounds every second, compared to previous estimates of up to 2,000 pounds per second.

Read more