NASA's top boffins have found a huge amount of granite on the moon – but it shouldn't be there and they have no idea how it got there.
Granite is one of the toughest materials found on Earth and can be found in abundance on our planet.
And while tiny specks of it have been seen on the Moon before, a new mega-cache has caused confusion as it could change our understanding of the giant rock forever because of how it needs water to form.
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According to the Planetary Science Institute, the granite was found in the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex and was “likely formed from cooling molten lava that fed a volcano/volcanoes that erupted approximately 3.5 billion years ago”.
This could also change our entire understanding of science, too.
Timothy Glotch, a geologist at Stony Brook University in the United States, said: “Typically, granites require either plate tectonics or water-bearing magmas to form.
“While the lunar interior contains small amounts of water, the Moon has never undergone plate tectonics.
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“Therefore, this discovery of the granitic complex, or batholith underneath the CBVC, points to some not-yet-understood process that is responsible for the granitic formation.”
The exact size of the giant cache has not yet been made public, but experts are expressing their confusion about how it could have been formed.
Another of those is Dr Matthew Siegler from the PSI.
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He said: “Any big body of granite that we find on Earth used to feed a big bunch of volcanoes, much like a large system is feeding the Cascade volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest today.
“The surprising magnitude and geographic extent of this feature imply an Earth-like, evolved granite system larger than believed possible on the Moon, especially outside of the Procellarum region — a phenomenon previously documented only on Earth.”
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