Moon May Not Be As Dead As We Thought

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Moon May Not Be As Dead As We Thought

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @04:19AM from the lunological-activity dept.

rivin2e writes "It would seem our neighbor, the moon, has something hidden below the surface. 'Images collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter hints the moon has probably seen tectonic activity within the last 50 million years.' It would appear from the article that the moon is changing a lot more than we think, even if it doesn't seem like it. I, for one, am still waiting for that big black obelisk to be dug up." From NASA's press release: "A team of researchers analyzing high-resolution images obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) show small, narrow trenches typically much longer than they are wide. This indicates the lunar crust is being pulled apart at these locations. These linear valleys, known as graben, form when the moon's crust stretches, breaks and drops down along two bounding faults. A handful of these graben systems have been found across the lunar surface."

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the moon is growing by mestar · 2012-02-21 04:23 · Score: 3, Funny

It is obvious. The moon is growing.
1. Re:the moon is growing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-21 04:35 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  It's not growing--something inside it is ready to burst out. This must be what the Mayans were talking about.
2. Re:the moon is growing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-21 04:45 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  It's the First Angel, Adam.
  The Second Impact occurs 12 years later than we thought, but it's imminent.
3. Re:the moon is growing by fedos · 2012-02-21 04:56 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  It's a mutant space goat. We better get the telephone cleaners and hair dressers loaded onto B Ark.
4. Re:the moon is growing by Coisiche · 2012-02-21 05:05 · Score: 2
  
  Well, it was a book of it's time.
  I think in the modern world, we of the 99% know exactly who the real drains on society who should be on the B ark are.
5. Re:the moon is growing by Beardo+the+Bearded · 2012-02-21 05:14 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I'm not worried. The last time any Gods showed up, we killed it -- nailed the fucking thing to a cross and let it bleed to death. This was during the Roman Empire when the highest technology was what, a slightly faster chariot? A Galleon with archers on deck?
  It's 2012. We've got battleships, satellites, hypersonic jet aircraft, helicopter gunships, atomic weapons, and a grudge deeper than Mariana's Trench.
  You want to destroy the Earth? Well, you'll have to get through us first.
  
  --
  
  ---
  ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
6. Re:the moon is growing by tom17 · 2012-02-21 05:15 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  We need to make sure that when we get there, we have a good infrastructure of lawyers, big media execs and politicians.
7. Re:the moon is growing by dkleinsc · 2012-02-21 05:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Don't forget banking and finance. They definitely need capital markets if they're going to accomplish anything. After all, without the possibility of great monetary reward, there's no way anybody would bother to build a shelter for themselves or gather fruit to eat.
  
  --
  I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
8. Re:the moon is growing by smellsofbikes · 2012-02-21 09:33 · Score: 2
  
  It's a mutant space goat. We better get the telephone cleaners and hair dressers loaded onto B Ark.
  A bit of Douglas Adams humor that's often overlooked is the final sequel to the story: all the people left on the planet, the ones who would've been in the A and C arks, were killed by a disease caught from a dirty telephone, because they'd gotten rid of all their telephone sanitizers. The people on the B ark ended up outliving all the "useful" people, a point that is wilfully missed by most readers who identify with the A and C ark people. I'm pretty sure Douglas Adams knew exactly how this would be read, and enjoyed his double-depth joke all the more for knowing that.
  
  --
  Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Moon... dead? by girlintraining · 2012-02-21 04:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm not sure tectonic plate activity really moves a planet over from the 'dead' category to the 'mostly dead' category (also known as 'slightly alive'). Unless of course you just found Thor hanging out there running around banging mountains flat or something.
Perhaps you meant to say "Moon not as geologically stable as we thought." ?

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1. Re:Moon... dead? by chill · 2012-02-21 04:37 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Its not fooling anyone, you know? The moon'll be stone dead in a moment.
  
  --
  Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
2. Re:Moon... dead? by Kjella · 2012-02-21 04:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Dead as in inert, inactive like a dead volcano. Not everything we describe as dead was ever alive...
  
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  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
3. Re:Moon... dead? by equex · 2012-02-21 05:00 · Score: 2
  
  Isn't it just gravity pull from the earth ? Lots of other moons in our solar system has gravity trenches.
  
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  Can I light a sig ?
Yeah, yeah. by pushing-robot · 2012-02-21 04:25 · Score: 5, Funny

We all know this is just marketing for Iron Sky.

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How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
No volcanos by i+kan+reed · 2012-02-21 04:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Regardless of the facts concerning the moon's plate tectonics, there's a lot of evidence of how dead it is in the lack of active volcanoes. Earth has 2-5 eruptions each year, the moon has none, as long as we've been observing it. Any active mantle, must therefor be deep below the crust. I've heard it said that tidally locked planetoids elsewhere in the solar system have some high energy earthquakes due to the relative forces on their near and far faces. Perhaps this is like that?
1. Re:No volcanos by vlm · 2012-02-21 04:41 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Another good point in favor of dead moon is the seismological studies that were done. Supposedly all evidence at that time pointed to a solid body. For example seismic waves reflect off solid/liq transition boundary, you see that on earth, not on moon, so either the entire moon is liquid or the entire moon is solid, and surface studies clearly show its solid, so the inside must also be solid. Plate tectonics are much harder if the whole moon is a solid cold rock.
  Probably a good excuse to visit the moon again... drop a permanent base, several geologists with moon buggies and C-4 to run some standard seismic surveys...
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
2. Re:No volcanos by mbone · 2012-02-21 04:50 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  ...the moon has none, as long as we've been observing it.
  Don't be so sure.
  The Moon has shallow (non-tidal) Moonquakes. No one knows much about their causes.
  No other solar system body (except, of course, for the Earth) has had any seismological data at all. (One of the Viking landers had a working seismometer; it was totally swamped by wind vibrations; at most it may have detected the grand total of one Marsquake, but that's not clear.)
3. Re:No volcanos by stjobe · 2012-02-21 05:38 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Earth has 2-5 eruptions each year
  That's off by a factor of ten.
  From wikipedia: "Presently there are about 500 active volcanoes in the world – the majority following along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' – and around 50 of these erupt each year.[6] The United States is home to 50 active volcanoes.[7] There are more than 1,500 potentially active volcanoes.[8] An estimated 500 million people live near active volcanoes.[9]"
  
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  "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Monolith, not Obelisk by na1led · 2012-02-21 04:29 · Score: 2

An obelisk is a tall pointed structure, the monolith in 2001 was not pointed, it was rectangular.

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-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Only mostly dead? by Galaga88 · 2012-02-21 04:32 · Score: 5, Funny

Science Max: It just so happens that your moon here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo Moontoya: What's that?
Science Max: Go through its craters and look for loose helium-3.
1. Re:Only mostly dead? by yurtinus · 2012-02-21 05:29 · Score: 2
  
  Oh gods, my kingdom for an Inconceivable mod!!!
  
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  +1 Disagree
Re:Major nerd points lost. by Sectoid_Dev · 2012-02-21 04:32 · Score: 2

I, for one, am still waiting for that big black obelisk to be dug up.
Obelisk? Really? Not a 1:4:9 rectangular solid?
I believe the word you are looking for is 'monolith'.
Re:Major nerd points lost. by Gideon+Wells · 2012-02-21 04:33 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh sure, hold up the 1:4:9s as the standard of beauty. Anorexic slabs. Its bad enough that they go through purge cycles. Just look at what they did to Jupiter. Now if they maintained a healthy mass...

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TLP, baby by mbone · 2012-02-21 04:39 · Score: 2

The Moon has Transient Lunar Phenomena - lights and other features that come and go. These have
been observed enough, over a long enough time, and are correlated enough with recent lunar features to make me think they are real.
So to me, the real questions is, are these LRO features correlated with the TLP locations ?
Re:So "Being Alive" is defined as what? by mbone · 2012-02-21 04:42 · Score: 3, Informative

Geologically, "live" means active and "dead," or "extinct" means inactive (as in a dead or extinct volcano). This terminology has been used for a long time (decades, if not centuries) and is reasonably expressive.
By the way, electrical engineering has live wires, using the same analogy. Best not to touch them.
Re:Lava Tubes by bmo · 2012-02-21 04:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

But that was before they got a closer look.
When the model changes to accept new data, we call it science.
When the model never changes and rejects all new data, we call it religion and dogma.
Hope this helps.
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BMO
Upgraded by MadKeithV · 2012-02-21 04:53 · Score: 3, Funny

The moon has been upgraded from "harmless" to "mostly harmless" then?
Re:Run! by Chas · 2012-02-21 04:58 · Score: 2

You can't run on the moon. If you do, the combination of low gravity and leg power will push you into orbit.
So "Shuffle really really fast man!"

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Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Obligatory by Lucky75 · 2012-02-21 05:08 · Score: 2

That's no moon!

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DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Isn't that kind of how trenches work? by davidbrit2 · 2012-02-21 05:41 · Score: 4, Funny

...small, narrow trenches typically much longer than they are wide.
Well yeah, if they aren't, we just call them "holes".
Pix of the where the monolith should be by Squidlips · 2012-02-21 06:16 · Score: 2

Here is the top of the central peak in Tycho: http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/articles/tycho-central-peak-spectacular Maybe it is a round monolith ;^)
Mostly Dead? by Ogive17 · 2012-02-21 06:19 · Score: 2

NASA should seek out Miracle Max, maybe he can help.

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"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Don't Breathe This... by Dogtanian · 2012-02-21 07:44 · Score: 2

I will assume that it is no moon, but is, in fact, a battle station.
But is it fully armed and operational? That IS the question.
No, it's not.

"Will It Blend?"... *That* is the question!

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Re:Run! by riverat1 · 2012-02-21 07:49 · Score: 2

Ooh, you awakened the pedant in me. I doubt you could achieve orbit around the Moon on human power alone.
According to the Wikipedia article on orbital speed orbital velocity for a circular orbit where the orbiting body's mass is small compared to the body being orbited is approximately equal to sqrt(u/a) where u is actually the Greek letter mu and the standard gravitational parameter and a is the length of the semi-major axis which for a circle is the radius. So the SGP for the Moon (from the Wikipedia article) is 4,902.7779 (km^3 sec^-2) and the Moon's mean radius is 1737 km so adding 3 km to clear the mountain peaks would give you sqrt(4903/1740) = an orbital velocity of 2.82 km/sec or 10152 km/hr. That would be pretty difficult to achieve on human power.