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[A] Baylor University study [DOI: 10.1029/2019GL082252] [DX], published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, combined data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) missions and found the huge blob lurking over a hundred miles beneath the South Pole-Aitken basin.
The mass, which isn't immediately obvious on the surface, appears to be dragging down the lunar landscape above it by around half a mile. In terms of size, lead author of the paper, Peter B. James, compared it to a pile of metal five times the size of Hawaii's big island.
[...] The scientists have a number of theories for where this mass could have come from, including one that involves the solidification of an ocean of lunar magma.
The leading theory posits the mass comes from an asteroid with an iron-nickel core that smacked into the lunar surface four billion years ago. Scientists calculated that a sufficiently dispersed impactor core could remain suspended in the Moon's mantle rather than sink to the core.
(Score: 3, Funny) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday June 12 2019, @02:43PM (1 child)
As if everybody shouldn't know the cause [wikipedia.org].
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by J053 on Wednesday June 12 2019, @07:42PM