The moon has its own “Grand Canyon of Colorado”, and twice. Only these two cannons were not caused by the slow erosion of a river like Colorado: 15 minutes of destruction left over to leave these two huge scars on the surface of the moon.
10 minutes of destruction. A new study has analyzed In detail two huge geological strips located in the vicinity of the South Pole of the Moon. The analysis has determined, among other conclusions, that they were formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet and that the impact was such that these cannons were formed in less than 15 minutes of destruction.
Two big cannons. Their names are Schrödinger Valley and Planck Valle The return From humans to the moon.
The new study has offered us New data on magnitude and morphological characteristics of these two sores on the surface of our satellite. These two cannons have a length of 270 and 280 kilometers; and 2.7 and 3.5 kilometers deep, respectively.
An immense force. In addition to analyzing the characteristics of these two stripes, the study tried to characterize the impact that caused them. When studying the way in which they were excavated, they determined that the process lasted between 4.9 and 15 minutes in one of the cases and between 5.2 and 15.4 minutes in the other. That is, they only needed Around 10 minutes so that the impact sweeps with tons and tons of lunar rock.
The causative impact would have had a huge force. As explained by the study responsible for the study, the energy required to produce these cannons would have been 700 times larger than the energy released by the nuclear tests of China, the US and USSR, and 130 times greater than energy in the World Inventory of Arms nuclear
The details of the study, like the latter, were published In an article In the magazine Nature Communications.
The best analogue of the Chicxulub crater. The impact would have occurred billions of years before the termination of dinosaurs causing on earth. However, the study responsible for the study maintains in its article that this lunar impact is the “the best analogous expression on the surface” of the Chicxulub crater.
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Image | NASA \ SVS \ ERNIE T. Wright