Moon: Puzzle Solution – This is already inside

As of 9:16 p.m| Reading time: 3 minutes

gugranted: The crater’s appearance and bright yellow glow on starry nights can sometimes give the impression from Earth that the Moon is a giant cheese wheel in its orbit. At least the popular culture conspiracy theory circulating the Internet, which many people see as “The moon is made of green cheese” (Arabic: The moon is made of green cheese) a favour.

Obviously, most of the speculation in the discussion forums is not serious. But among the self-proclaimed astronomy experts, there are also “real” conspiracy theorists. These flat Earthers still believe that our planet is flat. This yarn is reminiscent of a medieval tale from the Slavic region. It has been seen in history, as the English researcher J. H. McKnight wrote in the specialized journal “PMLA“, the wolf sees the moon’s reflection in a pool of water – and misinterprets the flat image as a wheel of cheese.

All eccentric?

A research team led by astronomer Arthur Briaud from Paris was able to prove that there is, of course, nothing more than these crude theories National Center for Scientific Research now Prove. They published their results in the specialized journal “nature“.

The interior of the moon: It’s a lot less exciting than expected

In general, the Moon’s core is said to be very similar to the Earth’s interior, as the research team discovered based on various data and mathematical models. Accordingly, in the inner core of the Earth’s satellite there is a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron.

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“Our results raise questions about the evolution of the Moon’s magnetic field because they support the presence of an inner core,” the scientists wrote in the study. To reach this conclusion, astronomers focused primarily on evaluating seismic data collected in the past by NASA’s Apollo missions, among others.

The way sound waves from earthquakes travel through and reflect off materials inside a planet or moon can help scientists create a detailed map of an object’s interior and estimate the density of its individual components. Until now, it was known that there was definitely a liquid exosphere inside the Moon, but what the actual core consisted of was unclear and controversial. Both theories, liquid and solid core of the Moon, seem possible based on the Apollo data alone.

This is how astronomers gained their knowledge

To finally get certainty, Briaud and his colleagues collected data from space missions and laser rangefinder experiments on the Moon to identify different features. These include the degree of its deformation due to gravitational interaction as well as the fluctuation of its distance from Earth and its density.

They then performed modeling using different base types to see which ones matched the observational data best. It turns out that according to their model, the radius of the outer core is about 362 km, and the radius of the inner core is about 258 km. This represents about 15 percent of the radius of the entire Moon. They calculated the density of the inner core at about 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter. This roughly corresponds to the density of iron.

French astronomers thus confirm the results of a team led by NASA planetary scientist Marshall Rene Weber 2011.

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