NASA’s upcoming 2027 trip to the Moon could uncover a four-billion-year-old secret that would change how we understand it.
It is currently a thrilling time for space enthusiasts, with NASA and the worldwide community engaging in various exciting missions.
This includes the upcoming first manned trip to the Moon in 50 years, part of an ongoing move to try and make Moon landings easier and, in the long term, missions to Mars.
Add to that the announcement that NASA have plans for Astronauts to live on the Moon inside ‘lunar glass’ and the ongoing missions being achieved on the International Space Station and it becomes obvious how exciting the current moment is.
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NASA have plans for two separate trips to the Moon, the first of which is set to take place next year.
Called Artemis II, this will be the first manned mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and will see four space cadets travelling around the Moon. In 2027, Artemis III will take place and will see astronauts landing on the Moon.
This could be fascinating due to recent discoveries made which indicate that the Moon may have been struck by a massive asteroid 4.3 billion years ago which completely reshaped it.
The new study by the University of Arizona, published in Nature, seems to provide an answer as to why the far side of the moon is cratered whilst the near side of the moon where the recent Apollo landings have taken place is smooth.
The huge asteroid supposedly struck the Moon from the north, reshaping its surface and revealing the deep hidden interior layers.
This created what is now known as the ‘South Pole-Aitken impact basin’, one of the greatest mysteries known to mankind regarding the Moon.
Scientists have long wondered why the side closest to Earth is so dissimilar to the far side of the Moon, something which this explains.
The team at the University of Arizona also came to the conclusion that the asteroid came from the north, with it previously having been thought to have landed from the south where the impact is most obvious.
Jeff Andrews-Hanna, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, said in the paper: "This means that the Artemis missions will be landing on the down-range rim of the basin -- the best place to study the largest and oldest impact basin on the moon, where most of the ejecta, material from deep within the moon's interior, should be piled up.
The paper not only shows evidence that seems to prove the asteroid came from the north, but also evidence about the inner structure of the moon and how it has changed in the last four billion years.
Andrews-Hanna also spoke about how the manned-mission will allow them to analyse ‘KREEP’, which stands for Potassium, Rare Earth Materials, and Phosophorous, an acronym used to describe a rare rock sample which covers the Moon.
Andrews-Hanna said: “With Artemis, we'll have samples to study here on Earth, and we will know exactly what they are.
“Our study shows that these samples may reveal even more about the early evolution of the moon than had been thought.”
Michael Slavin