Pablo Martínez-Juarez
WriterEnvironmental economist and science journalist. For a few years, I worked as a researcher on the economics of climate change adaptation. Now I write about that and much more.
The Moon has its own version of the Grand Canyon–in fact, it has two of them. However, unlike the famous canyon in Arizona, which was formed over millions of years through the slow erosion of a river, the lunar canyons were carved out in a matter of minutes after a massive impact.
10 minutes of violence. A recent study published in Nature Communications closely examined two massive geological formations near the Moon’s south pole. The findings reveal that these canyons were formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet in barely 10 minutes.
Two large canyons. Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck extend in a straight line from the Schrödinger basin, which is situated near the lunar south pole. It’s not far from the site NASA has chosen for its planned program to return humans to the Moon.
The recent study provides new insights into the size and morphological features of these two prominent features. Vallis Schrödinger is 168 miles long and 1.7 miles deep, while Vallis Planck stretches 174 miles and reaches a depth of 2.2 miles.
An immense force. In addition to analyzing the characteristics of the two lunar canyons, the study aimed to characterize the impact that created them. Researchers determined that the excavation process took between 4.9 and 15 minutes in one case, and between 5.2 and 15.4 minutes in the other. In other words, it took around 10 minutes for the impact to obliterate tons of lunar rock.
The force of the impact was staggering. According to the research team, the energy required to produce the impacts was 700 times larger than the energy released by the nuclear explosion tests conducted by the U.S., China, and the USSR. Additionally, it was 130 times larger than the total energy in the global inventory of nuclear weapons.
The best equivalent for the Chicxulub crater. Researchers believe the lunar impact took place billions of years before the event that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs on Earth, which occurred around 66 million years ago. However, the research team argues that the lunar impact is the “best analog surface expression for Earth’s buried Chicxulub impact crater.”
Image | Nicolas Thomas | NASA/SVS/Ernie T. Wright
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