Earth’s moon is shrinking and quaking, study says – CNN

This means that the Apollo seismometers recorded the moon shrinking, the researchers said. The study of Apollo seismic data and analysis of more than 12,000 of the orbiter’s photos were published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“It’s really remarkable to see how data from nearly 50 years ago and from the [orbiter] mission has been combined to advance our understanding of the Moon while suggesting where future missions intent on studying the Moon’s interior processes should go,” said John Keller in a statement, study author and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The researchers believe the quakes are still occurring on the moon, which means that its actively changing.
“Our analysis gives the first evidence that these faults are still active and likely producing moonquakes today as the Moon continues to gradually cool and shrink,” said Thomas Watters, senior scientist in the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. “Some of these quakes can be fairly strong, around five on the Richter scale.”
Some of the quakes also happened during a point in the moon’s orbit when it was farthest from Earth, indicating that the tidal stress of Earth’s gravity could have contributed to stress on the moon’s crust.
“You don’t often get to see active tectonics anywhere but Earth, so it’s very exciting to think these faults may still be producing moonquakes,” said Nicholas Schmerr in a statement, study author and assistant professor of geology at the University of Maryland. Schmerr designed the algorithm that re-analyzed the Apollo data.
The researchers noted other evidence in the orbiter’s photos of landslides and boulders at the bottom of bright patches, signaling recent activity. Over time, the lunar surface darkens due to weathering and radiation, so bright spots are areas where recent activity has exposed areas on the lunar surface.
“For me, these findings emphasize that we need to go back to the moon,” Schmerr said. “We learned a lot from the Apollo missions, but they really only scratched the surface. With a larger network of modern seismometers, we could make huge strides in our understanding of the moon’s geology. This provides some very promising low-hanging fruit for science on a future mission to the moon.”
“Establishing a new network of seismometers on the lunar surface should be a priority for human exploration of the Moon, both to learn more about the Moon’s interior and to determine how much of a hazard moonquakes present,” said Renee Weber, study co-author and planetary seismologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in a statement.

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