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Ruslan Avdeev
After analyzing the data collected during geological experiments on the surface of the Moon, carried out during the American Apollo missions, carried out half a century ago, scientists were able to establish that the Earth’s satellite has a solid core surrounded by an external liquid, similar to the earth.
Image Source: Geoazur/Nicolas Sarter
During six missions with a landing on the Moon, carried out from 1969 to 1972, astronauts carried out a number of experiments on the surface of a celestial body, including, for example, detonating special charges. In addition, the astronauts used tools to study the satellite, including the so-called. geophones and seismographs. In addition, lunar boosters and lunar model stages have been used to create small artificial analogues of “earthquakes”.
As a result, various data still came to Earth until 1977, after which support for research was discontinued, although, as reported in the journal Nature, a certain “passive” laser experiment can be carried out for literally centuries. One way or another, scientists are still studying the data obtained and have come to interesting and very important conclusions.
The French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), together with the University of the Côte d’Azur, the Côte d’Azur Observatory, the Sorbonne and the Paris Observatory, studied the seismic data obtained during the Apollo missions, combining this information with research data related to the “irregularities” of the moon’s rotation. This made it possible to develop models that determine the internal structure of the satellite of our planet.
Back in the 1990s, it became clear that the Moon has a liquid outer core, “heated” by tidal forces, but the nature of the inner core was still inaccessible. Now it turned out that the Moon has a solid inner core of only about 500 km in diameter, consisting of a metal approximately corresponding in density to iron.
According to the team of researchers, this is of great importance, since such a core was very difficult to detect due to its small size. In addition, scientists report that the discovery will somehow explain the disappearance of the moon’s magnetic field – although at one time it was supposedly 100 times more intense than the earth’s. Research results published in the journal Nature.
