{"id":126229,"date":"2020-09-02T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T18:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=126229"},"modified":"2020-09-02T08:12:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T18:12:30","slug":"earth-oxygen-moon-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/09\/02\/earth-oxygen-moon-rust\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Earth\u2019s oxygen rusted the Moon for billions of years?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"moon
Enhanced map of hematite (red) on Moon using a spheric projection (nearside only). (Photo credit: Shuai Li)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To the surprise of many planetary scientists, the oxidized iron mineral hematite has been discovered at high latitudes on the Moon. That\u2019s according to a study published in Science Advances<\/em><\/a> led by Shuai Li<\/strong>, an assistant researcher at the Hawaiʻi<\/span> Institute of Geophysics and Planetology<\/a> (HIGP<\/abbr>) in the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology<\/a> (SOEST<\/abbr>).<\/p>\n

Iron is highly reactive with oxygen\u2014forming reddish rust commonly seen on Earth. The lunar surface and interior, however, are virtually devoid of oxygen, so pristine metallic iron is prevalent on the Moon, and highly oxidized iron has not been confirmed in samples returned from the Apollo missions. In addition, hydrogen in solar wind blasts the lunar surface, which acts in opposition to oxidation. Thus, the presence of highly oxidized iron-bearing minerals, such as hematite, on the Moon is an unexpected discovery.<\/p>\n

“Our hypothesis is that lunar hematite is formed through oxidation of lunar surface iron by the oxygen from the Earth\u2019s upper atmosphere that has been continuously blown to the lunar surface by solar wind when the Moon is in Earth\u2019s magnetotail during the past several billion years,” said Li.<\/p>\n

\"moon
Map of hematite on the moon—redder color means more hematite. (Photo credit: Shuai Li<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To make the discovery, Li, HIGP<\/abbr> professor Paul Lucey<\/strong> and co-authors from NASA<\/abbr>\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL<\/abbr>) and elsewhere analyzed the hyperspectral reflectance data acquired by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3<\/abbr>) designed by NASA<\/abbr> JPL<\/abbr> onboard India\u2019s Chandrayaan-1 mission.<\/p>\n

This new research was inspired by Li\u2019s previous discovery of water ice in the Moon\u2019s polar regions in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“When I examined the M3<\/abbr> data at the polar regions, I found some spectral features and patterns are different from those we see at the lower latitudes or the Apollo samples,” said Li. “I was curious whether it is possible that there are water-rock reactions on the Moon. After months of investigation, I figured out I was seeing the signature of hematite.”<\/p>\n

The team found that the locations where hematite is present are strongly correlated with water content at high latitude Li and others found previously and are more concentrated on the nearside, which always faces the Earth.<\/p>\n

“This discovery will reshape our knowledge about the Moon\u2019s polar regions,” said Li. “Earth may have played an important role on the evolution of the Moon\u2019s surface.”<\/p>\n

For more see SOEST<\/abbr>\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

–By Marcie Grabowski<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the surprise of many planetary scientists, the oxidized iron mineral hematite has been discovered at high latitudes on the Moon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[170,1363,835,158,92,9],"class_list":["post-126229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-hawaii-institute-of-geophysics-and-planetology","tag-manoa-research","tag-planetology","tag-publication","tag-school-of-ocean-and-earth-science-and-technology","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126229"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126240,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126229\/revisions\/126240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}