The piece of rock that the crew of the American Apollo 14 brought among the lunar soil turned out to be of terrestrial origin.
In 1971, the Apollo 14 spacecraft delivered 23 kilograms of lunar soil to Earth. Among these samples was a lump that was nicknamed "Big Bertha". In this piece of rock, the attention of scientists was attracted by a small dissemination weighing about 2 grams. It consisted of quartz, feldspar and zirconium. On the moon, these chemical elements are rare, but very widespread on Earth.
A team of scientists led by geologist Jeremy Welluci of the Swedish Museum of Natural History conducted detailed analyzes of lunar rock samples. Thanks to zirconium (it contains uranium, and its half-life gives an accurate date), it was possible to establish the age of the formation of this inclusion: 4-4.1 billion years ago. But most interestingly, scientists found that these minerals could have formed under pressure, which occurs only at a depth of about 20 kilometers. Moreover, the oxygen level there should be much higher than those indicators that were observed in the lunar mantle 4 billion years ago. In other words, all the data proved the earthly origin of the stone.
But how could he get to the moon?
Scientists believe that this was due to the fall of a large asteroid or comet to Earth. It happened 4 billion years ago, when the Earth was still a very young planet (it was only 540 million years old), pieces of rocks were scattered from a strong impact into space. It is known that the Moon was then located three times closer to the Earth than it is now. Therefore, fragments of the explosion could easily hit this "target". They are capable of making much more distant travel. For example, a total of 34 meteorites of Martian origin were found on Earth, at one time these stone blocks were knocked out of the surface of the Red Planet by a falling asteroid or thrown out by a powerful volcanic eruption.
The piece of rock that the crew of the American Apollo 14 brought among the lunar soil turned out to be of terrestrial origin.
When a piece of rock from Earth fell to the Moon, according to geologists, he soon drowned in liquid lava, since our companion was also in a molten state. And on the surface "Big Bertha" and a fragment of terrestrial minerals were 26 million years ago, when a large meteorite crashed into the Moon and formed the Cone crater. Well, in 1971, astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected samples of lunar soil on the edge of this crater. Moreover, they had to climb to the very top of the crater. But Shepard's spacesuit showed a small oxygen leak, so the astronauts did not reach their destination and began to collect the soil lying under their feet. So the most ancient sample of the composition of its lithosphere was delivered to the Earth. The fact is that his earthly peers are inaccessible for study. 4 billion years ago, afteras the rock from "Big Bertha" went on its space journey to the moon, powerful tectonic activity was observed on the Earth and the entire solid shell of the Earth plunged into a molten ocean of magma.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
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