2024-01-29 21:00:00
To the extent that the universe is, at practical levels, infinite, so is the knowledge that human beings acquire about it. And this condition means that it never ceases to surprise us, as demonstrated by the latest discovery about our satellite: A new study has recalculated the age of the Moon – until now, located at approximately 4.425 million years-and has concluded that it is around 40 million years older than previously thought.
The results have been published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Lettersalthough they are not definitive as researchers believe that, due to the planned lunar missions In the coming months and years, it is possible that clues will be found on the Moon that doubt againthe age updated in 2023.
Reordering the chronology, however, is essential not only to know the creation process of our satellite, but to obtain more details about the circumstances under which it was formed: What does this phenomenon tell us about the Earth? What was our planet like then? The answers to these questions seem to be getting closer to being known.
Lunar dust, key to knowing the age of the satellite
In the same way that the growth rings of a tree (those concentric circles that can be observed on the trunk when felled) allow us to know approximately its age, lunar dust contains materials that, after analysis, can tell us how the tree originated. satelite.
They were the astronauts of the Apollo 17, in 1972, who collected samples of lunar rock and brought them to Earth so that experts could examine their composition. With this, it was possible to know that one of the first minerals to crystallize during the formation stage of the Moon was the zircon (ZrSiO4)which has the property of absorbing uranium isotopes from the environment.
Applying the uranium-lead dating systemwhich is commonly used in geochemistry to date rocks that crystallized millions of years ago, throughout this half century there have been numerous investigations that have drawn conclusions about the age of the Moon.
However, the new study, which takes the previous hypotheses as a starting point and puts into practice the innovative technique of atomic probe tomographyhas found the oldest zircon fragment from the satellite found so far, which would have crystallized ago 4.46 billion years. Which indicates that the Moon must be at least that old.
Thus, the change of figure It is not the result of an error in the calculation or in the methodologybut in the samples analyzed previously no such old particles had been found.
Could it be even older?
NASA’s Artemis III mission, which aims to be manned and land at the South Pole in December 2025, is only one of many that will take place in the short term: This year, in fact, we have already witnessed several attempts to reach the most remote places on the Moon.
This indicates that, sooner or later, the ships will return with samples of lunar dust that could reveal more secrets about our satellite. And that, therefore, the figure determined in the new study is obsoleteallowing our certainty to approach with greater precision the ancient origins of the universe.
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