Samples Obtained By Chinese Spacecraft Show Moon's Ancient Volcanism (yahoo.com) 31
China's Chang'e-6 mission made history by retrieving the first surface samples from the moon's far side, revealing evidence of volcanic activity spanning 1.4 billion years. Reuters reports: Researchers said on Friday the soil brought back from the Chang'e-6 landing site contained fragments of volcanic rock - basalt - dating to 4.2 billion years ago and to 2.8 billion years ago. This points to a long period of volcanic activity - at least 1.4 billion years - on the far side during the first half of the moon's history, when it was a more dynamic world than it is today. The moon, like Earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Volcanism on the moon, Earth and other planetary bodies involves the eruption of molten rock from the mantle - the layer just under the outer crust - onto the surface. The landing site in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact crater, is an area with the thinnest crust on the moon, helpful for finding evidence of volcanism.
The samples contained various volcanic rock fragments, and the researchers used a method called radioisotope dating to determine their age. Lunar basalt samples previously were obtained from the moon's near side, which perpetually faces Earth, during U.S. Apollo, Soviet Luna and Chinese Chang'e-5 missions. These showed that volcanism on the near side had occurred as long ago as 4.0 billion years ago and continued for at least two billion years, Li said. "The exact timing and duration of lunar volcanism is elusive and maybe varied across different regions. Some small-scale volcanism may have also occurred on the near side as late as about 120 million years ago as recorded by volcanic glass beads from Chang'e-5 samples" collected in 2020, Li said.
The new study also found that the basalt dating to 4.2 billion years ago differed in composition from the basalt dating to 2.8 billion years ago, meaning they originated from different sources of molten rock - magma - in the mantle, Li said. The Chang'e-6 samples, Li said, also differ in composition compared with previously collected lunar samples from the near side.
The samples contained various volcanic rock fragments, and the researchers used a method called radioisotope dating to determine their age. Lunar basalt samples previously were obtained from the moon's near side, which perpetually faces Earth, during U.S. Apollo, Soviet Luna and Chinese Chang'e-5 missions. These showed that volcanism on the near side had occurred as long ago as 4.0 billion years ago and continued for at least two billion years, Li said. "The exact timing and duration of lunar volcanism is elusive and maybe varied across different regions. Some small-scale volcanism may have also occurred on the near side as late as about 120 million years ago as recorded by volcanic glass beads from Chang'e-5 samples" collected in 2020, Li said.
The new study also found that the basalt dating to 4.2 billion years ago differed in composition from the basalt dating to 2.8 billion years ago, meaning they originated from different sources of molten rock - magma - in the mantle, Li said. The Chang'e-6 samples, Li said, also differ in composition compared with previously collected lunar samples from the near side.
Let's start mining already (Score:2, Funny)
Who knows what rare materials will be discovered if we finally start mining.
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Lol it's the same periodic table of the elements there as here. You seem to be living in some 1960s space fantasy, unconcerned about reality. Quite endearing and charming, if you're twelve.
What did that periodic table look like, when you were twelve?
I rest my case. Don’t do that.
Re: Let's start mining already (Score:1)
Was that supposed to mean something?
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Was that supposed to mean something?
I think it meant that materials do not equal elements. The periodic table lists elements, materials might be aerogels, or other mixtures of various elements.
I too am interested in what materials might be found there, I'ma gonna go out on a limb, and say these materials are going to be made up of elements in our good old periodic table.
Maybe you were having a bad day when you snarked at oblom.
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Hmmmm, I was an aware person when elements 102 & 103 were being repeatedly announced and retracted. I don't think I included them in my notebooks because they were being announced and then disputed. But those notebooks got binned during one or other move.
I had graduated before IUPAC accepted them into the periodic table. We've only added 10 more since then, and the much-touted "island of stability" isn't that stable.
I don't get upset about P
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Who knows what rare materials will be discovered if we finally start mining.
We struggle mining material on this planet, because “cost”.
What application of any material can you think of that justifies it, other than building a warp drive for the Enterprise that doesn’t exist?
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If humans are going to colonize the rest of the universe we need to start at the moon. Even if you think that space habitats are the way to go (my own opinion as well) you still need to start on the moon to extract the building materials (radiation shielding especially) since lifting that much mass out of Earth's gravity well has a whole slew of issues.
If you think that humans shouldn't expand off-planet then you're content for us to go the way of the Neanderthal and just die out. We may be the only plane
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If humans are going to colonize the rest of the universe
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is." We won't be colonizing anything outside of a few of the nearest solar systems.
We may be the only planet in the universe with life, and if by our own choice we confine it here until the Sun turns into a cold dark cinder it would be incredibly sad.
So who then will be around to feel sad?
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We won't be colonizing anything outside of a few of the nearest solar systems.
I wouldn't be so sure, given adequate resources human populations can expand at an exponential rate even without technological advances. Resources off-planet are literally limitless, no matter how diffusely they may be distributed, a population which had migrated as far as the Oort Cloud would only be a few steps from being able to live in deep space itself. What the "humans" would look like by that time is an interesting thought exercise, since from the first colonists will need to upgrade their genes to
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I vaguely remember that someone had proposed a way of doing that which didn't require materials with a negative energy density. But a way of achieving that "warping of space"? Not a hint of actual design - unless you know differently.
But we don't need that to "spread life", "spread our `civilization`", etc. We can get on with actually launching devices to other star systems pretty much today.
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unless you know differently.
Nope, only that at this point we don't know of anything prohibiting it. The old saying is, "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed," and that pretty much goes for physics as well.
unless you include a fusion reactor
Of course, unless they find something better in the meantime.
distinct rounds of benefication
Had never heard the term "benefication" before, thanks for that. So processing iron ore into taconite pellets would be 'benefication', right?
Mining in space is going to be very, very different from mining in a gravity well, and processing ore will be as well. We
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Never heard of "taconite" before. Whatever. The blast furnaces I grew up around depended on maintaining a basic slag (to which we'll return) to manage the phosphate in the ore as it came from the mine - until the mines became too expensive and we started importing Polish (IIRC) iron ore, then shut down the industry.
"Benefication" includes processes before humans came onto the scene. The oxidation of iron-2+ ions in solution in Arch
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Thanks for that, this is why I keep coming back to SlashDot after all these years.
I grew up going to the Sault Ste Marie Locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron in Michigan, watching the 300 meter iron ore ships passing through on their way to Cleveland. The sailors would throw 'taconite pellets' to the kids watching, 1-2 cm balls of the pre-processed ore that they carried. Wikipedia indicates that it's unique to the Minnesota/Wisconsin range.
Couldn't remember Chalcolithic, and my wife was calling me f
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If you have an industrial system that is capable of building an industrial base that can send it's vonNeumann machines 10 light years, and you find one system in that range which also has abundant "small bodies" (asteroids ; Oort cloud, etc), then you'll be able to get to cover the whole galaxy in what I'd call a "trivial" amount of time (I'm a geologist ; 10 Million years is "noise"). OK, you'll meet the occasional blank area. Wh
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That is solved easily.
First we build the Enterprise.
With impulse engines of course.
Then we let it hover and recalibrate the main deflector: and start mining.
Easy!
Tz... amoung all the noobs on /. I did not guess I have to explain that to an expert like YOU!
No. (Score:3)
Literally nothing on the moon is any value on Earth because the cost of retrieval VASTLY outsizes any perceived value. The only reason to mine the moon would be if the material is used to build things to go literally anywhere but Earth or if it cannot be obtained on Earth at all (e.g. Francium).
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Literally nothing on the moon is any value on Earth because the cost of retrieval VASTLY outsizes any perceived value. The only reason to mine the moon would be if the material is used to build things to go literally anywhere but Earth or if it cannot be obtained on Earth at all (e.g. Francium).
If you are speaking of "retrieval" you have already failed the premise. Extraction from the Moon would be used to build items not destined for Earth, but for other destinations "out there." That's the entire point. I'd agree, there is no reason to mine anything on the Moon or any other non-Earth body for Earth consumption. For building and consumption elsewhere? It makes so much more sense than hauling shit up from Earth for use out there.
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Nope, no sign that they had pointed ears...
Nomenclature (Score:1)
TFA (Score:2)
This is just one of the problems (Score:1)
This is just one of the problems I have with "science" stating "The moon, like Earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago" as if it is a fact, its a theory.
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You have an alternative theory? (Bear in mind that I am a geologist by profession, and have been interested in the origin of the Moon and planets for decades.)
The "Giant Impact hypothesis" is not a perfect solution to the question. But it's the closest approach we have at the moment. Variations like "multiple large impacts in close timing" remain on the table, but since at least 5 of the planets (IAU/ Levison defini
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My problem isn't with the theory, my problem is that it is stated as fact, and this always happens, once a theory gets enough "consensus" it gets stated as fact. Now for some people this isn't a big problem, as we can distinguish and understand what is meant, but the average punter has no idea, no idea that there are competing theories and no idea that it is a theory. Once the dominant theory is established all further research and discussion are shutdown and "science" not longer progresses forwards as ever
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That's not so different to the near side. (Score:2)
Subject : says it all, really.
While the Moon is, today, a less active body than the Earth, that doesn't mean it is inactive. I remember Patrick Moore doing the "Sky at Night [bbc.co.uk]" on the subject of "Transient Lunar Phenomena", which he asserted he'd seen a couple of examples of himself. (Obviously when observing by eye, b