Moon May Be Geologically Active

dptalia writes, "For decades scientist have thought that the moon has been 'dead' for about 1 to 3 billion years. However, new research points to the idea that the moon may have been volcanically active as recently as 1 million years ago. In fact, NASA geophysicist Paul Lowman believes the moon's core is still molten."

Comments

Molten Core = Magnetic Field

[casualsax3]

The fact that the moon as a very weak magnetic field is almost proof in and of itself that it doesn't have a molten core:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field#Magnet ic_field_of_celestial_bodies

it's not the size of the field...

[Red Flayer]

it's the presence of a dipole. (There's some really terrible doulbe entendres to get from that, but I'll pass onthe opportunity).

by casualsax3 (875131) Alter Relationship on Thursday November 09, @12:30PM (#16787241):

The fact that the moon as a very weak magnetic field is almost proof in and of itself that it doesn't have a molten core:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field#Magnet ic_field_of_celestial_bodies [wikipedia.org]

The moon's sidereal period is over 27 days, a strong magnetic field would not be expected. The major indicator that a molten core is not present is the lack of a dipolar field -- which a geodynamo (from the molten core) would cause.

Re: creationism

[geoffspear]

Okay, with that out of the way, my question is this: Does this tend to support creationism then (at least as opposed to a big bang with an extremely old universe), as a dead moon would likely be much older than a "recently" geologically active moon?

No. Even absolute proof that the moon was about 6000 years old would have nothing whatsoever to do with the Big Bang theory. No one thinks that the solar system is anywhere near as old at the universe itself, and the age of the objects in the solar system is miniscule compared to the time since the Big Bang.

In any case, if your conjecture about "geologically active" = "created recently" was remotely plausible, why would you need to look at the moon at all? The Earth has plenty of active volcanos that you can go and look at, which by your logic would "prove" that the Earth isn't "old".