NEW YORK. New research indicates that the moon was still volcanically active around 120 million years ago, a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. This discovery, made by analyzing three tiny glass beads collected from the lunar surface by China’s Chang’e 5 mission in 2020, challenges previous assumptions about when volcanic activity on the moon ceased.
The chemical composition of these glass beads suggests they were formed by volcanic eruptions, pointing to the existence of active lunar volcanoes as recently as 120 million years ago. This timeline is far more recent than earlier studies indicated, which estimated that lunar volcanic activity had ended around 2 billion years ago, with some estimates extending as far back as 4 billion years.
The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.
“It was a little bit unexpected,” commented Julie Stopar, senior staff scientist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute, who was not involved in the study. This groundbreaking evidence aligns with observations from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which in 2014 captured images suggesting more recent volcanic features on the moon. However, as Stopar emphasized, the Chang’e 5 glass beads provide the first physical proof of such recent volcanic activity. “Although more research is needed to confirm their origin,” she added.
The Chang’e 5 mission brought back the first lunar samples since NASA’s Apollo missions and Soviet lunar missions in the 1970s. The mission marked China’s latest success in lunar exploration, following the retrieval of samples from the far side of the moon in June.
Researchers analyzed around 3,000 glass beads, each smaller than a pinhead, identifying three that contained clear signs of volcanic origin. These tiny beads form on the moon when molten droplets, resulting from either volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts, cool and solidify.
Study co-author He Yuyang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained via email that this discovery could reshape scientists’ understanding of how long small planetary bodies like the moon can remain volcanically active. “This research may help us understand how long small planets and moons — including our own — can stay volcanically active,” he noted.
The timeline suggested by these findings appears to contradict existing models, which hold that the moon should have cooled past the point of sustaining volcanic activity by this era. “It should inspire lots of other studies to try to understand how this could happen,” Stopar remarked.
The unexpected revelation opens new avenues for research on lunar and planetary evolution, prompting scientists to reconsider theories on the thermal history and volcanic potential of other celestial bodies in our solar system.
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
