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Moon Younger Than Previously Thought

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-a-day-over-4-billion dept.

TaeKwonDood writes "Analysis of a piece of lunar rock brought back to Earth by the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 has shown that the Moon may be much younger than previously believed. Researchers say that the findings allow for one of two possibilities: the moon is 200 million years younger than previously thought, or the theory that the moon used to be a molten ocean is wrong."

1 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Oldest rock? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It sounds like they are assuming that they just happened to grab one of the oldest pieces of rock on the moon, or that the moon solidified all at once and there were never any later events (volcanoes, large body collisions). If you happened to grab the wrong piece of rock on Earth, say from a recently-erupted volcano, you would determine that the earth was only about a week old...