In addition to the asteroid Bennu sample, a lunar sample from 1972 is also grabbing headlines. It appears that the lunar sample collected by the Apollo 17 crew indicates the Moon may be about 40 million years older than previously believed.
In a study published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters, titled “4.46 Ga Zircons Anchor Chronology of Lunar Magma Ocean,” states (in part):
The atomic spatial resolution analysis of individual mineral grains demonstrates the absence of nanoscale clustering of lead, which supports a 4.46 Ga ancient formation age for lunar zircon in sample 72255. This age pushes back the age of the first preserved lunar crust by ∼40 Myr and provides a minimum formation age for the Moon within 110 Myr after the formation of the solar system.
If you can forgive the title of the piece, it basically resets the understanding of the Moon’s formation and, thereby, the formation of the early Earth.
In a Reuters story, Cosmochemist Philipp Heck, senior director of research at the Field Museum in Chicago and senior author of the study, noted:
The giant impact that formed the moon was a cataclysmic event for Earth and changed Earth’s rotational speed. After that, the moon had an effect on stabilizing Earth’s rotational axis and slowing down Earth’s rotational speed…The formation date of the moon is important as only after that Earth became a habitable planet.
What will we still be learning about asteroid Bennu in 50 years (assuming we can get all of that soil out of the canister)?
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