A meteorite found in Africa in 2023 turned out to be a piece of the Moon that had been ejected into space. Recent studies have determined that it is 2.35 billion years old. It is valuable evidence of the events happening on our moon at that time.
African meteorite
Scientists from the University of Manchester say they have found new evidence that the Moon remained geologically active for a fairly long period of time. They came to this conclusion based on research into a meteorite found in Northwest Africa.
It was previously known that this rock was a piece of lunar basalt knocked out of our moon by a collision with another celestial body. The main result of the research is the conclusion showing that its age is 2.35 billion years.
In addition, spectroscopic analysis shows that its chemical composition is unique, unlike anything that has been studied before. The high lead content indicates that it was once part of a lava flow that poured onto the surface of our moon.
A rare sample
The last fact, together with the age of the meteorite, makes the find particularly interesting. Actually, scientists had previously studied samples of moon rocks, which were also meteorites or something brought back by expeditions to the moon.
Most of them are rocks that formed more than 3 billion years ago and, as expected, contain traces of volcanic activity. However, scientists also have a sample that the Chang’e-5 spacecraft brought back from Oceanus Procellarum. It is significantly younger, less than 2 billion years old, and there are also traces of lava that flowed across the surface.
And all this against the backdrop of the fact that the Moon now appears geologically dead. Therefore, scientists desperately needed evidence of what happened during the billion years separating the older samples from the younger ones. How common was magmatic activity at that time?
Now they know the fact that it continued more or less constantly. The Moon remained geologically active for a long time, and now it will be interesting to find out how long this lasted. Fortunately, this is far from the last lunar meteorite, so we will soon be able to learn more.
According to phys.org
