Sensors placed on the lunar surface during the Apollo 17 mission revealed fascinating insights about moonquakes. These sensors detected four types of moonquakes: those caused by meteorite impacts, shallow quakes due to the moon’s cooling interior, tidal quakes originating from lunar tides, and thermal quakes triggered by temperature changes. Recently, scientists made a startling discovery by reanalyzing the data from the mission: the lunar module’s descent stage triggered a completely new type of seismic activity on the moon.
Scientists at the California University of Technology discovered this previously unknown seismic activity while studying data on thermal moonquakes. They noticed that some tremors occurred outside the usual pattern but still happened regularly. Using artificial intelligence, they determined that these were not thermal moonquakes and traced their origin. It turned out that the quakes were originating from the lunar module base, a 14-foot-wide octagonal prism on four legs that was warming up under the lunar morning sunlight.
Geophysicist Allen Husker and his colleagues published their findings in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Husker described how the lander would begin “popping off” every lunar morning when the sun hit it, with a new quake occurring every five to six minutes over a period of five to seven Earth hours. This discovery has significant implications for future lunar lander design and understanding moonquakes better.
Husker emphasized the importance of leveraging existing data to design experiments and missions that address the right questions. India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander, equipped with high-sensitivity accelerometers, detected possible evidence of a moonquake on its third day on the moon. This finding further highlights the need to expand our knowledge of moonquakes.
Stay tuned for more updates on lunar exploration and discoveries.
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