Source of Moon's Magnetism Found

Source of Moon's Magnetism Found

space.com

Moon rocks delivered to Earth by Apollo astronauts held a mystery that has plagued scientists since the 1970s: Why were the lunar rocks magnetic?

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 16/1/2009 by Mirthful Me]

Earth's rotating, iron core produces the planet's magnetic field. But the moon does not have such a setup.

Now, scientists at MIT think they have a solution. Some 4.2 billion years ago, the moon had a liquid core with a dynamo (like Earth's core today) that produced a strong magnetic field. The moon's magnetic field would have been about 1-50th as strong as Earth's is today, the researchers say.

space.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 16/1/2009 by Mirthful Me]

reply to post by mayank


or the moon was infact not a magnatised

But the earth magnatised it

Rub a magnet on a bit of steal and you get a magnatised bar..

the earth made the moon magnatised!! cool consept so now wat?

lol

reply to post by theresult


Yeah, we know the concept. However you cannot just magnetize everything. Try that trick with a bit of plastic and nothing will happen.

They are stating that the moon does not have the iron that earth does. Unless there is some other unknown metal the moon has which can be magnetized by the method you mentioned.

Well, I guess this gives more credence to the theory that when the earth was still molten in it's early years of being formed, something hit us and broke off a large chunk which formed the moon.

I personally still think it was formed from the same matter that formed earth, but it got trapped in orbit and clustered there instead of being pulled into the larger body that is earth.


But I can respect the theories of others, and admit when they begin to hold better than the ones I am a proponent of.

well if its magnatised..

it has the same properties as something that can be

its not unknow is it? its the total oppsist kinda thing..

Its usefull information that the moon has some porpites that are same as earths

The earth is big magnet !! not suprising the moon is..

But what is the point? I dont see why its such a big deal?

Originally posted by Amaxium
reply to post by theresult

 

Yeah, we know the concept. However you cannot just magnetize everything. Try that trick with a bit of plastic and nothing will happen.

They are stating that the moon does not have the iron that earth does. Unless there is some other unknown metal the moon has which can be magnetized by the method you mentioned.

who is to say there isnt some unknown metal the moon has. anything is possible in my book.

Your missing the point...

It has to have the properties...for it to BE magnatised..

Unknow wat? what is so unkown about a magenet??



Like stated befor you cant make a bit o plastic magnetic.. why?

it has no magnetic props we understand.. yet gravity is like a magnet

how do you stay on the earth?

nothing new to see here other than putting the moon on my fridge?

reply to post by theresult


Gravity is nothing like a magnet.

reply to post by Comatose


Agreed, if only it was that simple, the whole mystery surrounding Gravity, whoever does discover the secret of Gravity, will IMO be remembered forever in the history of Science.

As for this discovery, perhaps there are elements on the moon we dont have access to here on earth, maybe this is why the sudden decision has been made to go back and survey.

reply to post by mayank

Originally posted by "mayank"
Earth's rotating, iron core produces the planet's magnetic field. But the moon does not have such a setup.

The earth's so-called 'molten iron core' is the purest of conjecture. Nobody's ever been there to prove the earth's core is molten iron, open space containing an atmosphere and central sun, green cheese, or any other substance ( or lack thereof ) you might care to mention ...

IMHO, anybody over the age of legal majority who still just passively buys into what the scientific establishment is selling has been watching way too much TV or something.

Even if the earth's core is molten iron, the precise technicalities of how earth's dynamic magnetic field is produced is still an unsolved problem ( open question ) ...

Bottom line - Nobody knows what causes the earth's magnetic field, or if they do they aren't telling !!

ok guys and gals, let me chip in...

While searching around for various facts (or "facts") I came across the theory/perspective that the moon is something artificial and it's been brought here from someplace else.

I heard that when NASA landed there they did a sound-measurement something, where you place a transmitter and two receivers at the tops of an equilateral triangle, fire a sound wave and measure delays/distortions etc and from that you can get good hints at what lies underneath you.

So, the story goes that when they did that, the echoes wouldn't stop for 8 hours, indicating that the moon is hollow and metallic in composition.

I hear that this info is still available somewhere in NASA's archives and it's something that was "overlooked". I'm trying to verify this information (true or false). If anybody has any info for or against this story, I'd be very glad if they shared it with us.

Thanks,

T

Originally posted by thymisou
I heard that when NASA landed there they did a sound-measurement something, where you place a transmitter and two receivers at the tops of an equilateral triangle, fire a sound wave and measure delays/distortions etc and from that you can get good hints at what lies underneath you.

So, the story goes that when they did that, the echoes wouldn't stop for 8 hours, indicating that the moon is hollow and metallic in composition.

I think the echoes you are talking about was the reverberations detected by the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP).

ALSEP was a collection of geophysical instruments designed to monitor the environment of each Apollo landing site for at least a year after the astronauts had left. They actually worked for up to 8 years, until the experiments were shut down by Mission Control on 30 September 1977.


Artist's concept of the Apollo 15 ALSEP layout. The relative positions of the instrument are as planned and close to the deployed configuration.

I found this information about the Moon's reverberations:

The Moon rings like a bell when struck by a large object.
The first man-made crash directed at the Moon that could be detected by a seismometer occurred after the Apollo 12 astronauts had returned to the CSM and the LM ascent stage was sent smashing into the Moon's surface. The shock waves of this impact surprised the scientists - the Moon vibrated for over 55 minutes!! Also, the kinds of signals recorded by the seismometers were utterly different from any ever received before, starting with small waves, gaining in size to a peak, and then lasting for incredibly long periods of time. A seismic wave took 7 to 8 minutes to reach the peak of impact energy and then gradually decreased in amplitude over a period that lasted almost an hour. It was claimed that even after an hour the minutest reverberations had still not stopped.

When the Apollo 12 LM hit the lunar surface at 6,048 kilometers per hour, 72 kilometers from the landing site, digging an estimated 9 meter wide crater, the results were astonishing. All 3 seismometers in the package recorded the impact, which set up a sequence of reverberations lasting nearly an hour. Nothing like this had ever been measured on Earth.

The LM impact occurred at 1617 USCST November 20 1969. A news conference had been scheduled to begin at 1630, and when it did start, the Moon was still "ringing" as the scientists - all of them seismic experts - arrived at the news center from their laboratories.

Maurice Ewing, co-head of the seismic experiment, told the afternoon crowd of the unexpected event, informing them that the Moon was still ringing. He confessed he was at a loss to explain why the Moon behaved so strangely. "As for the meaning of it," Ewing announced, "I'd rather not make an interpretation right now. But it is as though one had struck a bell, say, in the belfry of a church a single blow and found that the reverberation from it continued for 30 minutes." As he spoke the reverberations continued on for another 25 minutes.

Dr Ross Taylor, a lunar scientist who had been on the team to examine the Apollo 11 samples in Houston, explains why the Moon rang for so long, "This was one of those extraordinary things. When you had the impact of these things on the Moon, unlike a terrestrial earthquake, which dies away quickly, the shock waves continued to reverberate around the Moon for a period of an hour or more, and this is attributed to the extremely dry nature of the lunar rock. As far as we know there is no moisture on the Moon, nothing to damp out these vibrations. The Moon’s surface is covered with rubble and this just transmits these waves without them being damped out in any way as they are on Earth. Basically, it’s a consequence of the Moon being extremely dry."

Read more about the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package here:
www.hq.nasa.gov...

thank you very much ziggystar60

that was spot on

Thank you, ziggystar60, for an awesome post, and a great segue into the following citation from an article about the Great Tsunami of 2005 -

uanews.org...

Study of Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake Yields New Insights
By Mari N. Jensen
May 25, 2005

Initially seismologists didn't realize the magnitude of the earthquake, said Beck. "Because it was so big, it was really hard to measure the size of this earthquake."

Initial estimates had put the earthquake at a magnitude 9.0. The new analysis estimates the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake as at least 9.1 and possibly as high as 9.3.

The ground shook more than 100 times harder during the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake than during California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. That earthquake--an event that caused major destruction from Santa Cruz to the San Francisco Bay Area--was only magnitude 6.9.

Some of the confounding aspects of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake were its long duration and huge areal extent. However the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake covered so much ground and lasted so long that the different types of earthquake waves kept overlapping at the recording stations, complicating the data analysis.

Moreover, the slowness and duration of the quake were astounding, Beck said. Its average speed was 1.25 miles (two kilometers) a second, which is slower than most earthquakes.

The earthquake made the entire Earth reverberate. She said, "The Earth rang for days -- here in Tucson."

Think about it - if the Earth is filled with a highly visous material like molten iron, doesn't it make sense that the energy from this quake would have damped out much more rapidly than it did, due to absorbtion by said viscous material? This is, after all the way automotive shock-absorbers work ...

Now, if the earth actually were not filled with said viscous dampening material, then it might very well indeed, "ring [like a bell] for days," as the citation states ...

[edit on 17-1-2009 by visible_villain]

Originally posted by Amaxium

They are stating that the moon does not have the iron that earth does. Unless there is some other unknown metal the moon has which can be magnetized by the method you mentioned.

Could you post that bit in the thread? I am not seeing the part about the moon not having the iron the Earth does.

Interesting stuff, but why do the rocks maintain their magnetic field for so long:?