Road trip clues for Moon missions from an Open University researcher (Forwarded)

Open University
Milton Keynes, U.K.

Media contact:
Louis De La For, +44 (0) 1908 653256

External Contact:
Dr Mahesh Anand, +44 1908 858 551

06 Dec 2007

Road trip clues for Moon missions from an Open University researcher

There are currently two spacecraft orbiting the moon, one from Japan and one
from China. India is planning an orbiter and a lander on the moon next
April. The US will follow with a series of missions starting with an orbiter
next year and with an intention to have permanent bases on the moon by 2020.

At The Open University, research into how the Moon has evolved since its
formation will give all these missions a better understanding of what
they're looking at.

Dr Mahesh Anand has co-authored a paper, published this week in Nature, that
dates basaltic volcanic activity on the moon to 4.35 billion years ago. Dr
Anand, along with Dr Kentaro Terada of Hiroshima University, Japan and
colleagues came to this conclusion after dating minerals in a lunar
meteorite dubbed Kalahari 009 -- some were associated with fragments of
crystallized magma from the earliest eruptions on the Moon's vast plains.
Other lunar rock samples collected during Apollo missions are the result of
more recent eruptions.

The authors consider it likely that this volcanism began while the Moon's
crust was forming. They say that Kalahari 009 is the first 'cryptomare'
sample from the Moon -- conveyer of a hidden signature of its earliest
history. "Our research gives an insight into timing and duration of basaltic
volcanism on the Moon since its formation," Dr Anand says. "We found some of
the answers in one of the oldest basaltic rock from the moon."