麻豆淫院

A large team of researchers with varied backgrounds at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has found evidence of a weak magnetic field on the moon approximately 2 billion years ago. In their published in the journal Science Advances, they analyzed rock samples returned by China's Chang'e-5 lunar exploration mission.

Benjamin Weiss at MIT has published a in the same journal issue outlining the history of research surrounding the moon's magnetic field and the work by the team on this new effort.

In 2020, the Chang'e-5 space probe returned to Earth from the moon carrying 1,731 grams of lunar dust and rocks. Pieces of those samples have been studied by multiple groups since then. In this new effort, the researchers studied some of those samples to learn more about the history of the moon's magnetic field.

The moon does not currently have a global magnetic field, but it once did, courtesy of thermomechanical convection deep in its interior that created a dynamo effect. Analysis of moon rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Union's uncrewed Luna missions showed evidence of a magnetic field on the moon approximately 4 billion years ago, albeit a weak one, approximately 1/20th that of Earth's.

Evidence of a magnetic field has provided scientists with evidence of molten fluid residing deep within the moon, which in turn supports theories regarding the nature of its creation and subsequent history.

Testing of the samples brought back by Chang'e-5, which were mostly basalt, showed that the moon had a magnetic field of between 2,000 to 4,000 nanoteslas approximately 2 billion years ago, which would have been during the middle years of its existence.

The finding suggests the moon had molten material below its surface far longer than previously thought, and also suggests it was likely experiencing volcanism later than thought鈥攁nd that it might have had more water frozen in its shadowed regions. A magnetic field would have shielded water on the surface from the solar wind, preventing chemical reactions that would have converted it to other materials.

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