{"id":231703,"date":"2025-02-04T16:25:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T16:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/the-moons-two-grand-canyons-formed-in-less-than-10-minutes\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T16:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T16:25:23","slug":"the-moons-two-grand-canyons-formed-in-less-than-10-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/the-moons-two-grand-canyons-formed-in-less-than-10-minutes\/","title":{"rendered":"The moon\u2019s two grand canyons formed in less than 10 minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MAR_014_25_A_598X336_option2_V02.png?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"The moon\u2019s two grand canyons formed in less than 10 minutes\" title=\"The moon\u2019s two grand canyons formed in less than 10 minutes\" \/><\/div> \r\n<br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p>A giant impact 3.8 billion years ago sent a curtain of rock flying away from a point near the moon\u2019s south pole. When that curtain fell, its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-024-55675-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rocks plunged up to 3.5 kilometers into the lunar surface<\/a> with energies 130 times greater than the global inventory of nuclear weapons, new calculations show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s how a hailstorm of boulders carved out two gargantuan canyons on the moon in less than 10 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey landed in a staccato fashion, bang-bang-bang-bang-bang,\u201d says planetary geologist David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, who reports the finding February 4 in <em>Nature Communications<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"rich-text embedded-conversion-content is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/deep-end-podcast-trailer?cta=top\">\n  <\/a><\/div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/deep-end-podcast-trailer?cta=top\">\n<\/a>\n\n<style><![CDATA[\n#dynamic-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  max-width: 100%;\n  height: auto;\n  clear: both;\n}\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n\n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>The two channels, Vallis Schr\u00f6dinger and Vallis Planck, extend in straight lines from the 320-kilometer-wide Schr\u00f6dinger basin marking the initial impact. Until now, the circumstances of the canyons\u2019 formation have been a mystery. The canyons are 270 and 280 kilometers long and up to 2.7 and 3.5 kilometers deep, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe landscape of the south polar region of the moon is so dramatic,\u201d Kring says. \u201cIf it occurred on Earth, it would be a national or international park.\u201d The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/grand-canyon-could-be-much-older-thought\">Grand Canyon<\/a>, for example winds for a sinuous 446 kilometers and is only 1.9 kilometers deep at its deepest point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-content-sidebar\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A tale of two canyons<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A comparison of the width and depth of the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel hiking trail (top) and Vallis Planck on the moon\u2019s south pole (bottom). The colors each represent 500 meters of elevation.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image  has-aligncenter\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"1070\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?fit=680%2C1070&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"Graphic cross-sections of two canyons\" class=\"wp-image-3149818\" style=\"width:487px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?w=680&amp;ssl=1 680w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?resize=243%2C383&amp;ssl=1 243w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?resize=286%2C450&amp;ssl=1 286w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?resize=118%2C186&amp;ssl=1 118w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?resize=369%2C580&amp;ssl=1 369w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/020325_lg_moon-canyons_inline_mobile.png?resize=493%2C776&amp;ssl=1 493w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\"\/><figcaption><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3149818\">David A. Kring, Danielle P. Kallenborn, and Gareth S. Collins.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The south pole also contains some of the oldest rocks on the moon, perhaps dating back to its formation about 4 billion years ago. Collecting samples from there would allow scientists to test some of the biggest mysteries about the moon\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there\u2019s a potential problem. The rim of the Schr\u00f6dinger basin is about 125 kilometers from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/moon-artemis-launch-human-spaceflight-apollo-nasa-china\">anticipated landing site of NASA\u2019s Artemis astronauts<\/a>. If the impact that formed the basin splashed rock in all directions, those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/first-look-rocks-lunar-volcanic-mystery\">tantalizing older rocks<\/a> could have been buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So Kring, together with geologists Danielle Kallenborn and Gareth Collins of Imperial College London, analyzed spacecraft images of the Schr\u00f6dinger basin and its canyons to deduce the physics of their formations. In addition to finding that the canyons\u2019 origin was swift and explosive, the team found that the straight lines converge toward the southern edge of Schr\u00f6dinger basin, not the middle. That convergence suggests the impacting object came in toward the moon at an angle, and splashed material preferentially northward, away from the Artemis exploration zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat means that very little of the Schr\u00f6dinger material is going to be burying this very old terrain,\u201d Kring says. \u201cWe have an opportunity to peer deeper into lunar history and better understand the earliest epoch of the Earth-moon system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/moon-grand-canyons-lunar-rocks\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A giant impact 3.8 billion years ago sent a curtain of rock flying away from a point near the moon\u2019s south pole. When that curtain fell, its rocks plunged up to 3.5 kilometers into the lunar surface with energies 130 times greater than the global inventory of nuclear weapons, new calculations show. And that\u2019s how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/MAR_014_25_A_598X336_option2_V02.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[181137,8608,633,2867,11202],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231705,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231703\/revisions\/231705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}