Scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) have discovered two massive canyons on the Moon’s far side, formed in under 10 minutes by an asteroid or comet impact. The structures, comparable in width and depth to Earth’s Grand Canyon, provide new insights into lunar asteroid impacts.
The Grand Canyon in the United States is 29 kilometres wide and over 1.8 kilometres deep.
The lunar canyons, known as Vallis Planck and Vallis Schrödinger, are of similar scale. Vallis Planck is approximately 280 kilometres long and 3.5 kilometres deep, while Vallis Schrödinger spans around 270 kilometres in length and reaches a depth of 2.7 kilometres.
David Kring, lead author of the study, explained that an asteroid or comet passed over the lunar south pole, brushing the mountain peaks of Malapert and Mouton before striking the surface. The high-energy impact launched streams of rock that carved the two canyons.
“While the Grand Canyon took millions of years to form, the two grand canyons on the Moon were carved in less than 10 minutes,” Kring said.
Using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, scientists mapped the canyons and applied computer modelling to determine the flow directions and speeds of the debris. The study revealed that the rubble travelled at speeds of up to approximately 3,600 kilometres per hour.
The asteroid or comet that impacted the Moon likely struck at nearly 55,000 kilometres per hour. The ejected debris, travelling at around 1 kilometre per second, created rays of secondary impact craters, forming the canyons.
The object responsible for the impact is estimated to have been about 25 kilometres in diameter, larger than the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs on Earth 66 million years ago. The canyons appear as straight-line scars on the lunar surface, radiating outward from a large, round impact crater, with smaller craters from unrelated impacts scattered nearby.
Scientists calculated that the energy required to form the Moon’s grand canyons was approximately 130 times greater than the total energy contained in the global inventory of nuclear weapons.
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