Scientists suggest Earth's early Moon experienced a period of intense volcanic activity, similar to Jupiter's moon Io.
Scientists say Earth's Moon went through a period when it was a lot like Io, a moon of Jupiter that's full of volcanic activity. The Moon has long been the Earth's close companion, but researchers have struggled to understand exactly when the moon formed, because tiny crystals in the moon rocks brought home by astronauts suggested two different ages.
One study argues for an earlier age, saying that the ancient Moon also went through a period when it got hot and partially remelted, producing new rocks about 4.35 billion years ago. The rock-melting heat came from early gravitational interactions with the Earth, which stretched and squeezed the Moon, warming it up. This process is called tidal heating. It is how Jupiter currently heats up its moon Io, the most volcanically active spot in the solar system. 'We think that the Moon went through a period when it looked like Io, and for the same reason,' says. There would have been volcanoes jetting off all over the place,' he says. 'It would have been very dramatic.' Astronomers have long known that the Earth and Moon are younger than 4.6 billion years, because that's when the solar system got its start. A huge cloud of dust and gas collapsed inward, forming a new star. Leftover clumps of matter started crashing into each other, glomming together and gradually building up planets. 'It would surely have been spectacular,' says Nimmo. 'It was just so energetic that it's really hard for us to conceive of what it must have looked like.' Back then, it would have been covered by a magma ocean that had to cool down and solidify into rocks. Nimmo says that lab workers have analyzed moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and found that almost all of the samples were 4.35 billion years old, suggesting they formed around 200 million years after the solar system started
MOON FORMATION VOLCANIC ACTIVITY TIDAL HEATING EARLY SOLAR SYSTEM ASTEROID IMPACTS
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