 |
| Artemis and Apollo (Public Domain) |
If you take comfort in the spherical shape of a full moon (howling aside), read no further.
If, however, you are prone to making lemons from lemonade, the latest lunar theories might please you.
Those in the know have observed for years that the full moon is a lot more full in some places than in others (kind of like us). These bulges more resemble the shape of a lemon than they do the shape of an orange.
Scientists have long wondered why rotational forces did not result in a more “perfect” lunar body (Artemis aside).
They are finally beginning to solve this ancient puzzle.
Richard Ingham of AFP reports that the moon’s “nubbly tips” might have been formed by “mighty gravitational forces exerted by Earth during the moon’s super-heated infancy.” (You’d be super-heated too with a twin brother like Apollo.)
While the moon was thus stretching and squeezing, frictional heat was being generated. This heat “was not distributed universally,” and the moon’s then-molten rock cooled at different rates. The would-be rotational sphere therefore became “warped” in certain areas, resulting in lemon-like bulges.
Resources
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/riddle-of-bulging-moon-solved-at-last
Copyright September 11, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment