ZEE News 6/18/2019
A team of astrophysicists, including one of Indian origin, has found that the Moon, where NASA will be sending astronauts by 2024, contains clues to the ancient mysteries of the Sun, which are crucial to understanding the development of life.
Our natural satellite took shape when a Mars-sized object smashed into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The force of this crash sent materials spewing into orbit, where they coalesced into the Moon.
"The Earth and Moon would have formed with similar materials, so the question is, why was the Moon depleted in these elements?" asked Rosemary Killen, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The scientists suspected that one big question informed the other that the history of the Sun is buried in the Moon's crust.
"We didn't know what the Sun looked like in its first billion years, and it's super important because it likely changed how Venus' atmosphere evolved and how quickly it lost water. It also probably changed how quickly Mars lost its atmosphere, and it changed the atmospheric chemistry of Earth," explained Prabal Saxena, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard.
More:
https://zeenews.india.com/space/moons-crust-hides-early-history-of-sun-nasa-scientists-2212393.html
