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Subscribe to RSSA video from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team traces 4.5 billion years of the moon's evolution.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has traced the moon's early history as well as the latest trash left behind by moonwalkers, and now the team behind the mission has created a video smashing 4.5 billion years of the moon's existence into less than three minutes.
"Evolution of the Moon," released to mark LRO's first thousand days in orbit, starts just after the moon's congealment into a ball of molten rock, and guides you through the giant blast that formed the South Pole-Aitken Basin, through the pummeling known as the Heavy Bombardment, right through the hail of debris that resulted in the cratered satellite we all know and love.
Only one big scene is missing from the show, in my opinion: the catastrophic impact between Earth and another planet, an event that scientists believe led to the moon's creation. Consider it the prequel to "Evolution of the Moon."
There's yet another scene that scientists are thinking about adding to the story: a collision involving the moon and a smaller moonlet, sometime after the moon's formation. Some researchers suspect that such a "Big Splat" could have been responsible for the marked difference in the terrain of the moon's near side and far side — although others think the Aitken Basin blast or gravitational forces could have done the job. NASA's GRAIL mission, which was launched last year, could shed more light on that chapter of the story.
There's also a "Tour of the Moon," about five minutes in length, that guides you through the highlights of the moon's topography with the help of LRO imagery. You'll get a quick overview on the mysteries of Orientale Basin and Aitken Basin, the artifacts left behind by the Apollo 17 mission, the far-side craters we can never see from Earth, and the future of lunar exploration. For space fans, it's must-see video.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team presents a "Tour of the Moon."
More from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
- Best view yet of the Apollo 11 landing site
- Giant moon crater detailed in close-up
- Rare volcanoes seen on moon's far side
- See the moon's marvels in 3-D
Tip o' the log to Gizmodo's Jesus Diaz and the LRO team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I was really surprised by the less-than-awe-inspiring beginning. This is supposed to be a video of the Moon's lifetime and they gloss over the actual formation of the Moon.
From the article:
But, the video doesn't guide viewers "through" the Moon's hot formation. The Moon starts out as a molten ball and cools. Why bother making this video if you're not going to include the theorized smash up that lead to the molten ball in the first place? I'm not suggesting we go all the way back to the big bang and follow all of our celestial constituents through time until we eventually end up with the Moon we know and love. But, come on, how could anyone making this video sit there and say, "lets not put in that part with giant impact".
Exactly
because their hypothesis' on moon formation are broken as fk, just like everything else about the big bang cosmology.
Hmm, I'll try to phrase that better, to avoid the implication that the video actually shows the impact. Naku may have a bit of a point about not wanting to stray so much into the collision hypothesis.
Huh?
The moon-formation hypothesis is "controversial" now?
Nah ... I don't think Naku is onto too much of anything. This, coming from a guy using "big bang" as though it's on the same terms as big foot?
LSD was the main ingredient in the Collision Theory...for enough material to be ejected during this theorized impact, that enough would have magically achieved orbit around the "New" Earth to form a "moon" 1/6th of the size of the earth... 4000% of the earth and moons total mass would have been needed...all of this while 99.97% of all the other solar systems moons are not even suspected or even possibly could have been formed in this manner...the capture or co-forming theories are way more likely ( with some issues of their own)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the mathematics and physics behind the collision hypothesis was already considered to be quite sound? Not proven, of course, but still pretty sound indeed. Is there not a myriad of computer models that confirm this?
Don't get me wrong, if the "capture" and/or "co-form" models carry equal plausibility, then by all means, we should have them on the table as well.
And lastly, this is going to be a bit of a nit, but I'd love to get the rest of your thoughts.
I'm seeing the term "theory" thrown around a bit too much these days. Within articles and ideas such as this, where we don't have specific Scientific Theories formulated, why are we calling them such?
Why is this not the proper term used in accordance with these types of conversations? Again, I hate to sound nit-picky, but I think it should. The very reason people are so skeptical about valid Scientific Theories is because the term is thrown around to the point of negating its very significant meaning.
This is why we hear people say:
"Evolution!? These scientists can't even agree on which theory explains the formation of the moon!"
Folks please calm down... Naku is correct in saying that the origin of the moon is still a theory in progress. The predominant view is that a large body struck earth and the collision slowed the impacting body enough for it to be captured by earth's gravity. This molten body became the moon as we know it. This molten body is where the video begins.
Some other folks believe that the moon was created by intelligent design... HAHA!!!
A dumb question, if two inert object collide in a vacuum, is there an explosion that emits light?
Yes... photons are a form of energy. Light = photons. Kinetic energy can and does get converted into heat and which gives off light. Incandescent light bulbs generate light from electrical energy within a vacuum by resistance within a wire thereby generating heat and light.
What an awesome video!
Maybe they'll make a video based solely on that.
Thanks, Alan!
One can hope. I do hope they do.
Yeah, that would be a nice companion piece, along with others that they could create in this style. The possibilities would be endless. How Earth evolved in a three min. video would be very interesting. As far as I'm concerned, they could leave out Adam, Eve and Noah and save more time for the dinosaurs. ;-)
Thanks, Darrah!
Um, why do the asteroid impacts make noise?
Space had an atmosphere way back then
Maybe the reason why they didn't show the formation of the Moon is because scientists still aren't sure exactly how the moon was formed. Was it a planet that strayed to close to Earth and got caught in Earth's gravitational pull? Or was it some kind of impact, a huge asteroid that hit the Earth causing a huge amount of debris that coalesced into the Moon? Or maybe it was an impact that deflected off Earth and became the Moon?
The first impact crater makes me think of my eye when I look at it in the mirror.
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a, Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby, kiss me
Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you
Fill my heart with song
Let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, in other words
I love you.
... Artist: Frank Sinatra
... Writer: Cole Porter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VXieTCqWzc
Great song!
Here's a "moon" poem by my favorite poet, Ray McNiece. (He gave me permission to share any of his poems.)
First Woman on the Moon
This song is gravity
pulling the dead light
from the full moon
into the lungs and sung
from the top of the escape
alone and above
filling the empty alley.
She's up there alright
bounding dunes weightlessly,
somersaulting crators,
deserted evening gown
fluttering through the dark
like breath through an oboe.
And she's not coming back.
Who hears the sad chant
of the crickets at dawn?
Who hears the whippoorwill
anymore? Hank, stop drinking
that milk laced with whiskey
and tell me, who hears
the moon going down solo?
by Ray McNiece from his book of poetry "The Bone-Orchard Conga"
http://raymcniece.com/
Doesn't the moon inspire.
If we only knew the secrets of the creative process, most of it is based on theory, no one really knows, I would like to know what is real creative power behind all that we can see with the naked eye......I hope there is a purpose to it all.......
I know the secrets of the creative process - it is God Himself as revealed in the Bible! Why do people continually look to the creation in awe and turn around and deny the Creator? There is a purpose to it all - This same creator God wants you to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ His Son. Like me, He wants to save you from your sins and give you the promise of eternal life.
Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Science, baby, science.
You have to define what you mean by "science", because the concept of origins, and where there are no human observers, falls outside the classical definition of "operational" science. As the Big Bang theory also has no human observer and no possibility of experimentation of a one-time unique event, the materialist is left with speculation. You cannot use the scientific method on the Big Bang! In my case, it is not speculation at all - it is an eyewitness account of God Himself, and I will choose that any day over the mindless speculation of ignorant men.
I think what she is getting at Greg is that science offers and explanation and proof to an idea. The Bible offers a bunch of short stories about an imaginary man in the sky that you believe "created" the universe as you know it. Believe what you want, but I would rather believe something to be true being proven by science, not a single imaginary person.
And why would I have to define? I don't. You see, there are some of who like and even love science and nature just for the hell of it and or that's how life works.
But of course they are people who want to postulate and surmise everything under and over the sun. I can't stand to read boring articles and comments like that. Some of us have been turned off by science because our teachers constantly spewed that crap.
So cr, you're correct.
cherub_rock - there is no proof of any Big Bang. There are in fact numerous problems with the theory. As far as where did the mass-energy of the initial explosion come from, scientists are left to explain it away by some "quantum fluctuation"! There's your imaginary person - everything in the universe came from nothing (quantum fluctuation). Nothing created everything. It's a violation of the first law of thermodynamics. Evolution (particles to people) is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. These ideas are certainly not scientific, but desperate attempts to rid the concept of a supernatural God.
Just for the record, I wasn't referring to this article as boring. When you have science and art (as the video), then you have science and art at its best. The two complement each other like nothing else can except life. And that's basically what life is made of--science and art.
Another computer animation from the imagiination of someone who, like the rest of us, doesn't know how God created the moon.
Who said god created the moon??? Oh yeah, you read that in a book called the bible. A book that has absolutely no facts to backup anything in it. A book whose origin is totally unknown. A book that has an unknown author and no audit trail to prove it has never been edited or rewritten numerous times. Other then the bible, there is absolutely no proof that there is a god or jesus. Not one single sign or sighting of either. I'll take a scientific hypothesis on how the moon was created, which includes an actual moon to look at, over a mythical being that has never shown itself.
Ain't it great that we have imaginations!?! Gives us the ability to theorize about the formation of the moon. And...gives us the ability to try and imagine a Greater Power that's responsible for it all.
I don't think a "who" made the moon. Little pieces and parts of flotsam and jetsam floating around a newly formed star sorta aggregated. Hand of God? Coincidence? Natural action of objects in motion?
Who cares!?! It's there, and we're here, looking at it. Theology is all esoteric and philosophical. We can SEE the moon! It's right up there. How it got there is immaterial. It keeps this planet alive and functioning. Without it, we'd prolly be a bunch of stagnating algae in motionless seas, surrounded by barren land.
I'll take the geological explanation. I don't see God bein' bothered to make a tiny moon around a small planet in one galaxy of billions. Expand your mind, friend. Not everything is DIRECTLY attributable to God. Some things just happen.
Be talkin' to you...........................Webrydr
How did it happen to end up with the same side always facing Earth? One half heavier, denser?
Coincidently enough there was an article here on MSN just yesterday that answered that specific question. Have a look it shouldn't be hard to find
no longer will i just think about the ..//. man in the moon. just goes to show how we evolve and that there is logical reasons
I've seen the theorized impact that created the moon a dozen times. The "glancing blow" theory seems to hold water. A body about the size of Mars striking what, at that time, was another rather pliable and at least partially molten proto-earth COULD have happened. Lacking a better hypothesis, the collision theory fills most of the criteria for formation of the moon.
That said, the video is awesome! The Heavy Bombardment period must have been a sight to see, even though it would have definitely been a bad day at Black Rock if one was up close and personal.
Had I done this, I would have likely left the initial collision out, too. We DO know the moon managed to find an orbit around the earth, although it was much closer back in the day. We DO know that it was formed before the period of Heavy Bombardment. We DO know the evolution of the moon. Hard to miss all those big impacts.
So, as a scientific piece of evidence, this may lack some bona fides. But, as an intriguing look at what MIGHT have happened, it's a brilliant piece of work.
Well done.......................................Webrydr
Ah, yes.
Star Dust combined in a certain way to form something capable of discussing the combination of
other Star Dust formed in a way as to leave a mystery. Like the earliest part of this video (Star Dust in the
form of plastic, metal, glass and energy), much of the earliest part of Genesis (the first seven days)(Star
Dust in the form of cloth, paper, ink and thought energy) was left out because: a) He wanted It left out
because we couldn't handle It, b) Computer time wasn't available, c) It is just a theory and the proof is
yet forthcoming, d) Both are just an Artist's (or artist's) presentation (the projection of combined Star
Dust) subjest to the interpretation of the observer (more Star Dust).
Oh, Phil 673730, NOT a dumb question! As most objects in space are moving at velocities in the OMG! ranges the impacts will almost aways give off light (Star Dust in the form of energy). The only believed exception is Star Dust coming in contact with a black hole. The event horizon prevents us from "seeing" if this is true. Also there is the minor fact we humans haven't "looked" everywhere in the universe to confirm this.
Hech! I forgot to ask: Where are the bryozoans?
Thank you, Alan! Very well done video and, as always, well presented!
VIVA 42!
That Tyco Crater is a very familiar feature to me since I was looking at it the other night with my new telescope, after I was gazing at the Jupiter and Venus conjunction. I really like how it looks like a frozen drop impact in water, with the center jutting outward like a small mountain. It makes one wonder why most of the other impact craters do not have such a prominant feature in the center of each impact zone? Could it be the soil in this Tyco Crater area was softer than other areas, much like sandy loam as compared to clay?
I agree the heavy bombardment period is certainly impressive. Anyone know what happened to the earth's atmosphere during this period? Did it get superheated and blown away, only to reform again later by outgassing?
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how the planet earth, has avoided being hit by something, when you take in the vast amount of rocks flying through space an we only get hit by 3 or 4 in the life span of earth, i am not anyone who claims to be very informed on such things but it did enter my mind to ask, is it our atomsphier that burns most of these up before hitting the earth or are we just lucky, or is there a reasonable answer, someone please answer my question, please reply to my email address thank you
diana, just so you know we have been hit far more than 3 or 4 times, likely we have been hit more than the moon. However due to the processes of erosion and land building most traces of impacts get erased over time. Also while our atmosphere does provide some protection this is only a recent event (geologically speaking) much of our history we were without an protective atmosphere. So we are neither lucky nor always protected our planet has just erased most of the evidence