Researchers have uncovered surprising evidence suggesting that volcanic activity on the moon persisted much longer than previously believed, potentially continuing until around 120 million years ago. This conclusion comes from an analysis of tiny glass beads retrieved from the moon’s surface by China’s Chang’e 5 mission in 2020.
The chemical makeup of the beads indicates that lunar volcanoes were active far more recently than scientists originally thought. Prior studies suggested that volcanic activity on the moon ended roughly 2 billion years ago, with some estimates stretching back to 4 billion years.
Published in the journal Science, the research challenges our earlier understanding of the moon’s volcanic timeline. ‘It was a little bit unexpected,’ commented Julie Stopar, a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, who was not involved in the study.
The evidence builds upon observations from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2014, which hinted at more recent volcanic activity. However, the glass beads represent the first physical proof of this phenomenon. Although additional research is necessary to confirm their origins, the discovery is groundbreaking.
This groundbreaking research relied on about 3,000 lunar glass beads, each smaller than a pinhead, among which three were found to have characteristics indicative of volcanic activity. These beads can form when molten droplets cool following a volcanic eruption or meteorite impact.
Co-author He Yuyang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences emphasized the importance of the discovery, noting that it offers insights into how long small celestial bodies like the moon and even Earth can remain volcanically active.
The Chang’e 5 mission’s samples are the first lunar rocks returned to Earth since NASA’s Apollo missions and Soviet Union missions in the 1970s. Earlier this year, China also returned samples from the far side of the moon.
Despite these findings, existing timelines suggested the moon had cooled beyond the point of volcanic activity by the period proposed by this research. ‘It should inspire lots of other studies to try to understand how this could happen,’ remarked Stopar.
This new evidence is expected to spur additional studies to explore the duration of volcanic activity on the moon and other similar celestial bodies, potentially altering our understanding of planetary evolution and geologic activity in our solar system.