By Vivek Dubey
CNBC-TV18.com
Published August 23, 2024
India's Chandrayaan-3 mission provided evidence on the Moon's early evolution, marking a significant advancement in our understanding of Earth's celestial companion.
In August 2023, the Pragyan rover uncovered a former magma ocean near the Moon's South Pole, using an X-ray spectrometer to analyse rocks and dust.
Magma oceans, vast molten rock layers, are believed to form during the accretion of planets and moons, covering their surfaces when they are partially or fully molten.
Before the Apollo missions, three theories—capture, accretion, and fission—dominated discussions on the Moon's origin, each proposing a different formation process.
The capture theory suggested the Moon was a wandering celestial body that was eventually caught by Earth's gravitational pull, becoming our natural satellite.
According to the accretion hypothesis, the Moon co-formed alongside Earth from the primordial solar nebula as the solar system developed.
The fission theory proposed that Earth's rapid rotation led to the ejection of material, which eventually coalesced into the Moon, now orbiting our planet.
Apollo missions in the late 1960s and 1970s debunked previous theories, revealing through lunar samples that the Moon likely formed from a massive impact.
The Giant-Impact Theory, suggesting the Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago from a colossal collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body, now prevails in scientific circles.
The Lunar Magma Ocean (LMO) theory posits that the Moon was once a molten body, with lighter minerals like ferroan anorthosite floating to the surface to form its crust.
Chandrayaan-3's discovery of magma evidence at the Moon's south pole, compared to equatorial regions studied in previous missions, suggests a uniform crust composition, reinforcing the LMO theory.