Related papers: Completion of Lunar Magma Ocean Solidification at …
The timing of the Moon's formation is fundamental to understanding the early Earth-Moon system. Ages of lunar magma ocean (LMO) crystallization have long been regarded as a key proxy for that event. Yet returned lunar sample ages cluster…
Anorthosites that comprise the bulk of the lunar crust are believed to have formed during solidification of a Lunar Magma Ocean (LMO) in which these rocks would have floated to the surface. This early flotation crust would have formed a…
The process of lunar magma ocean solidification provides constraints on the properties of distinct chemical reservoirs in the lunar mantle that formed during the early evolution of the Moon. We use a combination of phase equilibria models…
Subsequent to the Moon's formation, late accretion to the terrestrial planets strongly modified the physical and chemical nature of silicate crusts and mantles. This alteration came in the form of melting through impacts, as well as the…
Here we critically examine the geophysical and geochemical properties of the Moon in order to identify the extent to which dynamical scenarios satisfy these observations. New joint inversions of existing lunar geophysical data (mean mass,…
We use a hybrid numerical approach to simulate the formation of the Moon from an impact-generated disk, consisting of a fluid model for the disk inside the Roche limit and an N-body code to describe accretion outside the Roche limit. As the…
Lunar laser ranging (LLR) data and Apollo seismic data analyses, revealed independent evidence for the presence of a fluid lunar core. However, the size of the lunar fluid core remained uncertain by $\pm55$ km (encompassing two contrasting…
The early thermal evolution of Moon has been numerically simulated to understand the magnitude of the impact induced heating and the initially stored thermal energy of the accreting Moonlets. The main objective of the present study is to…
Lunar impact glasses, quenched melts produced during cratering events on the Moon, have the potential to provide not only compositional information about both the local and regional geology of the Moon but also information about the impact…
Zircons are found in extraterrestrial rocks from the Moon, Mars, and some differentiated meteorite parent-bodies. These zircons are rare, often of small size, and have been affected by neutron capture induced by cosmic ray exposure. The…
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…
The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) period is the narrow time interval between 3.8 and 3.9 Gyr ago, where the bulk of the craters we see on the Moon formed. Even more craters formed on the Earth. During a field expedition to the 3.8 Gyr old…
Three principal concepts regarding lunar formation have been examined: the accretion hypothesis, the mega-impact theory, and the multi-impact model. The multi-impact model amalgamates the salient facets of the mega-impact theory and the…
The early evolution of the Earth-Moon system prescribes the tidal environment of the Hadean Earth and holds the key to the formation mechanism of the Moon and its thermal evolution. Estimating its early state by backtracking from the…
Recently a number of studies have identified small lunar geologic structures to be <100 Ma in age using standard remote sensing techniques. Here we present new crater size frequency distributions (CSFD) and model ages using craters D> 10 m…
According to the generally accepted scenario, the last giant impact on the Earth formed the Moon and initiated the final phase of core formation by melting the Earth's mantle. A key goal of geochemistry is to date this event, but different…
We use the tidal deformations of the Moon induced by the Earth and the Sun as a tool for studying the inner structure of our satellite. Based on measurements of the degree-two tidal Love numbers k2 and h2 and dissipation coefficients from…
The importance of highly siderophile elements (HSEs) to track planetary late accretion has long been recognized. However, the precise nature of the Moon's accretional history remains enigmatic. There exists a significant mismatch of HSE…
The lunar crater record features $\sim 50$ basins. The radiometric dating of Apollo samples indicates that the Imbrium basin formed relatively late -- from the planet formation perspective -- some $\simeq 3.9$ Ga. Here we develop a…
Despite its importance to questions of lunar origin, the chemical composition of the Moon is not precisely known. In recent years, however, the isotopic composition of lunar samples has been determined to high precision and found to be…