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Mystery Moon Swirls Caused By Blasts of Comet Gas?

Posted by samzenpus on from the shiny-parts dept.

astroengine writes: Strange bright swirls have long been known to exist on the moon's surface and their origin is steeped in mystery. Often stretching thousands of miles across the lunar landscape, scientists have tried to make connections with the elegant curved shapes with the moon's interior magnetism or interactions between moon dirt and the solar wind, but these explanations have fallen short. Now, inspired by the Apollo moon landings and armed with a powerful computer model, researchers at Brown University think they have an alternative answer for these swirly patterns. Over the past 100 million years, many small comets impacted the moon's pockmarked surface. Along with the icy nuclei that carved craters into the moon rock, the gaseous comet atmospheres — known as a comet's coma — would have also blasted into the moon's uppermost layer of regolith, possibly leaving the swirly imprint. "We think this makes a pretty strong case that the swirls represent remnants of cometary collisions," said planetary geoscientist Peter Schultz, at Brown University.

11 comments

  1. Ahh the Moon... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Earth's orbital vacuum cleaner.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mystery Moon Swirls Caused By Blasts of Comet Gas!

    LOL.

    Never surprised to amaze me the non-sense they will peddle down to the (unsuspecting) population.

    "Moon made out of Swiss Cheese! Could feed the hungry in poor nations."

    1. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess you missed the paper from the u of mexico? Don't have it in front of me, but it was about a comet just missing the earth in the mid 1800's. Its actually a good read.

    2. Re: Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paper called " a fragmented comet nearly hits the earth" by manterola.

    3. Re:Say what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So your refutation of this scientific paper amounts to "this sounds silly to me!"?

      Thanks for the incisive input, dumbass.

    4. Re:Say what? by Guildor · · Score: 1

      I'm not impressed. If they think gaseous explosions from a comet impact is a likely cause, then surely, it would not be a swirling pattern? I'd expect to see this at the point of a crater, although no research into collisions has ever produced craters that look like those on the moon / Mars, that I'm aware of. Back to the point though, surely we'd see this patternation from craters and in multiple directs? Even if I'm wrong about the multiple directions, it surely makes sense that we should see a crater in the area? The picture they use in the article doesn't seem to follow the explanation, in my opinion.

    5. Re:Say what? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Informative

      A comet has a core, a coma and a tail. When the comet hits the Moon, the core may leave a crater. The coma and tail still impact, they are made of physical objects, but they are just gas and dust. The authors are saying the swirl patterns are caused by the impact of this gas and dust. It is not ejected from the crater.

  3. I usually just blame the dog by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 1

    problem solved

  4. Was NOT a comet ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But a GIANT sperm! And the moon is an EGG! Hmmmm. What will hatch? Hmmmm.

  5. That's no moon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's a space station.