New research suggests that the interior of the Moon’s far side may be colder than the side constantly facing Earth, adding another layer of strangeness to this mysterious lunar region.
The Moon is seriously two-faced. The near and far sides of Earth’s only natural satellite are so unlike each other, it’s a wonder they’re located on the same celestial sphere. Now, new research suggests they’re even more different than astronomers thought.
A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Geoscience found evidence to suggest that the interior of the Moon’s mysterious far side may be significantly colder than the near side, which constantly faces Earth. The findings, according to the authors, show that the geological differences between the Moon’s two faces extend far beneath the surface, bringing astronomers closer to figuring out why they’re so unalike.
“It is one of the great mysteries of the Moon,” co-author Yang Li, an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University College London and Peking University, said in a UCL release. “We call it the two-faced Moon. A dramatic difference in temperature between the near and far side of the mantle has long been hypothesised, but our study provides the first evidence using real samples.”Earth’s two-sided satellite
Astronomers once thought that the Moon’s near and far sides were relatively similar, but as their studies of the lunar surface have expanded over the last 60 years, they began to notice stark geological differences.
