Related papers: Forming the Moon from terrestrial silicate-rich ma…
We explore the likelihood that early remains of Earth, Mars, and Venus have been preserved on the Moon in high enough concentrations to motivate a search mission. During the Late Heavy Bombardment, the inner planets experienced frequent…
Lunar dust particles are generated by hypervelocity impacts of interplanetary micron-meteoroids onto the surface of the Moon, which seriously threatens the security of explorations. Studying the lunar dust dynamics helps to understand the…
Quantifying the energy budget of Earth in the first few million years following the Moon-forming giant impact is vital to understanding Earth's initial thermal state and the dynamics of lunar tidal evolution. After the impact, the body was…
Rubble-pile asteroids can form through the self-gravitational reaccumulation of fragments produced during large-scale collisions. To investigate how differentiated bodies are disrupted and how iron-rich rubble piles may form, we performed…
The intense activity of cratering on the Moon and in the inner regions of the solar system was accomplished during the first 10^9 years [1]. Occasionally, some impact events occur even nowadays. In Section 1, we treat, from a historical…
We examine how water is produced globally over the lunar surface as it orbits in/out of the magnetotail. Due to the interaction of the solar wind (SW) with Earth's magnetic field, upstream the magnetic field is compressed down to ~10 Earth…
The bulk silicate Earth (BSE) is depleted in moderately volatile elements, indicating Earth formed from a mixture of volatile-rich and -poor materials. To better constrain the origin and nature of Earth's volatile-rich building blocks, we…
Space weathering of lunar minerals, due to bombardment from solar wind (SW) particles and micrometeoroid impacts, modifies the mineralogy within tens of nanometers of the surface, i.e., the rim. Via remote sensing, spectroscopic signatures…
Methanol (CH$_3$OH) is found to be abundant and widespread towards the Central Molecular Zone, the inner few hundred parsecs of our Galaxy. Its origin is, however, not fully understood. It was proposed that the high cosmic ray ionisation…
Parameterised by the Love number $k_2$ and the tidal quality factor $Q$, and inferred from lunar laser ranging (LLR), tidal dissipation in the Moon follows an unexpected frequency dependence often interpreted as evidence for a highly…
The Moon holds important clues to the early evolution of the Solar System. Some 50 impact basins (crater diameter D>300 km) have been recognized on the lunar surface, implying that the early impact flux was much higher than it is now. The…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
One in every two atoms in the Earth, Mars, and the Moon is oxygen; it is the third most abundant element in the solar system. The oxygen isotopic compositions of the terrestrial planets are different from those of the Sun and demonstrate…
The lunar geological record is expected to contain a rich record of the galactic environment of the Solar System, including records of nearby (i.e. less than a few tens of parsecs) supernova explosions. This record will be composed of two…
Constraints on the interior of the Moon have been derived from its inductive response, principally as measured by the magnetic transfer function (TF) between the distantly orbiting Explorer 35 satellite and the Apollo 12 surface station.…
Strong strengthening of material under high confining pressure and jet nature of outflow from impact craters permit to show meteoroid impacts of >=10E6 Mt TNT equivalent are capable of ejecting rocks up to ~1 km in size from the Earth into…
The habitable zone for exomoons with Earth-like properties is a non-trivial manifold, compared to that of Earth-like exoplanets. The presence of tidal heating, eclipses and planetary illumination in the exomoon energy budget combine to…
Recent lunar crater studies have revealed an asymmetric distribution of rayed craters on the lunar surface. The asymmetry is related to the synchronous rotation of the Moon: there is a higher density of rayed craters on the leading…
Hydrocarbon mixtures are extremely abundant in the Universe, and diamond formation from them can play a crucial role in shaping the interior structure and evolution of planets. With first-principles accuracy, we first estimate the diamond…
Various theories have been proposed to explain the Moon's current inclined orbit. We test the viability of these theories by reconstructing the thermal-orbital history of the Moon. We build on past thermal-orbital models and incorporate the…