Meteorites are bombarding the moon much more often than previously thought. According to fresh estimates, over the past 7 years, 222 new craters have formed on the Earth's natural satellite.
Small meteorites regularly bombard the Moon and Earth. However, on the Blue Planet, these "attacks" in most cases go unnoticed, since meteorites usually burn up in the atmosphere, and do not have time to reach the Earth's surface. On the Moon, the situation is different - due to the practical absence of the atmosphere, its appearance is often subject to changes as a result of collisions with meteorites.
Scientists from the University of Arizona studied data obtained by the automatic interplanetary station Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and concluded that hundreds of new impact craters have formed on the Moon over the past 7 years.
Emerson Speyer and colleagues compared 14,000 images of the lunar surface before and after the launch of the LRO satellite and counted at least 222 craters more than 10 meters wide. That's 33% more than researchers expected. Scientists note that such dynamics could pose a serious danger to future lunar bases and early settlers.
Photo: NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University
“Before the launch of LRO, we believed that it took hundreds and thousands of millions of years to significantly change the surface of the Moon. However, in reality, the top layer is completely renewed in about 80 thousand years, - explained study author Emerson Speyer.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO, Lunar Orbital Probe) is NASA's automatic interplanetary station, which began operations in 2009.
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