“The Mystery of the Moon’s Inner Core: Revelations from Recent Investigations”

SPACE — The moon is one of the most frequently seen celestial objects. However, that does not mean we know him well.

Many things are still a mystery about the Moon. One of them is what is inside the Moon, what is the Moon made of? Whether the Moon’s inner core is solid or liquid has been debated for many years.

Now, thorough investigations have found that the Moon’s inner core is a dense sphere with a density similar to that of iron. The investigation was carried out by a team led by astronomer Arthur Briaud of the French National Center for Scientific Research in France.

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As information, the composition of the interior (core) of objects in the Solar System is most effectively carried out through seismic data. The trick is to calculate the acoustic waves generated by the earthquake and reflected from the material within the Solar System object.

Scientists then investigated lunar seismic data collected by the Apollo missions. However, the resolution of the data is too low to accurately determine how the Moon’s core is.

Previously, scientists knew from existing data that the outer core of the moon contained liquid, but what was inside the inner core of the moon was still being debated. Models of a solid inner core and an entirely liquid core match the Apollo data.

Briaud and his colleagues collated data from space missions and lunar laser range experiments to construct a profile of various characteristics of the moon. The processed data includes the degree of deformation by its gravitational interaction with the Earth, variations in its distance from Earth, and its density.

They also factored in the rate of deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, variations in its distance from Earth, and its density.

Next, scientists perform modeling with various types of cores or core types to find which one best fits the observation data.

There are some interesting findings. First, the model most closely resembles what scientists know about the Moon describes active reversals deep within the lunar mantle. That is, the denser matter inside the Moon falls towards the center, and the less dense matter rises to the top.

This activity has long been proposed as a way to explain the presence of certain elements in the volcanic regions of the Moon.

Scientists found that the moon’s core is very similar to Earth’s in that it has a liquid outer layer and a dense inner core. According to modeling, the outer core has a radius of about 362 kilometers, and the inner core has a radius of about 258 kilometers. That radius is about 15 percent of the entire Moon’s radius.

The team found that the inner core has a density of about 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter. It is very close to the density or density of iron.

Previously, in 2011 a team led by NASA planetary scientist Marshall Renee Weber found similar results using cutting-edge seismological techniques on Apollo data to study the moon’s core. They found evidence of a dense inner core about 240 kilometers in radius, with a density of about 8,000 kilograms per cubic meter.

That is, the findings of Briaud and his team are confirmation of previous findings. This data becomes interesting for studying the evolution of the Moon.

Scientists believe that not long after it was formed, the Moon had a strong magnetic field. This magnetic field began to decline about 3.2 billion years ago.

Such a magnetic field is generated by motion and convection in the core. So what the moon’s core is made of is very relevant to how and why the magnetic field dissipates.

This research was published in Nature.