Chandrayaan-3 Confirms Existence of Lunar Magma Ocean, A Major Breakthrough in Moon’s Evolutionary History

Chandrayaan-3 Confirms Existence of Lunar Magma Ocean, A Major Breakthrough in Moon’s Evolutionary History

India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission has delivered landmark evidence to discover the Lunar Magma Ocean on the southern highlands of the Moon, which might hold key information about its origin and evolution. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization on July 14, 2023. Chandrayaan-3 created history by becoming the first spacecraft to land near the lunar South Pole on August 23, 2023.

Scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad carefully analyzed the data collected by the Pragyan rover of the Chandrayaan-3 mission and made a monumental discovery. The findings were published in the most acclaimed scientific journal, Nature, on the anniversary of the mission.

For many decades, there prevailed a theory that the Moon was once a molten rock that was covered with a huge ocean of magma. In existential terms, its presence and extent were unknown since earlier lunar missions encompassing Apollo, Luna, or Chang’e 5 probed equatorial to mid-latitude regions. In sharp contrast, Chandrayaan-3 targeted a relatively unexplored South Pole, offering a raft of new insights.

This was the first mission where in-situ measurements of lunar soil, also called regolith, were made at the highlands near the South Pole, said Prof. Santosh Vadawale of PRL, Ahmedabad, Astrophysicist and lead author of the paper. Based on these samples, they found that the chemical composition was uniform and similar to what was brought from other parts of Moon—an affirmation of the LMO hypothesis.

The major composition of the landing site of Chandrayaan-3, because of which the results were obtained, was of ferroan anorthosite—a rock type that is additional evidence in support of the hypothesis. This uniformity in chemical composition from these different regions of the Moon suggests that at the time of the formation of the Moon, lighter ferroan anorthosite rocks floated to the surface and formed the highland rocky mass, while heavier minerals sank to form the mantle.

This puts one more advanced step in the explanation of the origin and evolution of the Moon; it makes a huge difference for established lunar exploration missions concerning the future. The findings assume much essence when countries like the United States, under NASA’s Artemis program, and India, with its planned moon mission by 2027, make attempts to have lunar bases for further scientific pursuits.

Also Read: PM Modi’s ‘Not Time for War’ Message from Poland Ahead of Historic Ukraine Visit

The data backing this discovery were delivered by the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer experiment onboard the Pragyan rover. It traveled 103 meters on the lunar surface, thus performing 23 scientific observations at different places that produced measurements of elemental composition for the Moon’s regolith. Measurements of such detail create valuable clues toward the Moon’s geological history and thereby confirm the LMO hypothesis in a much better perspective on Earth’s closest celestial neighbour.