New Moon Craters Are Appearing Faster Than Thought

The new technology suggests that the moon craters have increased by almost 33 percent.
By Clint Huston | Nov 03, 2016
It appears that new craters have appeared more rapidly than ever before. The moon has no atmosphere and therefore it receives more impacts from meteorites and comets. The discovery also suggests that it may be difficult for future moon explorations.

The discovery also suggests that volcanic mountains, craters and natural feature on the Moon may be much younger than previously thought. NASA is using NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which monitors about 6 percent of the lunar surface at a go.

The scientists say that by simply looking at the present photos they could not tell much. But after comparing them with previous photos they were able to ascertain very distinct features between the two times.

The time zones between the Earth and the moon mean that the photos have a differentia of 180 to 1700 days different. "When looking at just a single image, many of the newly formed features are indistinguishable from their surroundings," said study lead author Emerson Speyerer. "It's only with these detailed comparisons with previous images that we can separate out these small surface changes."

The new technology suggests that the moon craters have increased by almost 33 percent. But scientists insist that the change is not all due to impact with meters. They believe that there are more force3s at work and that the moon is still forming.

"I'm excited by the fact that we can see the regolith evolve and churn," said Speyerer. "A process that was believed to take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to occur in images acquired over the past several years."


