Moon may Harbor Alien Minerals, Study Says

Mining & Minerals - Evaluations / Off-World Exploration, Mining, & Technology

Date posted: 07/12/13

Minerals found in craters on the Moon may be remnants of asteroids that slammed into it and not, as long believed, the satellite's innards exposed by such impacts, a study said Sunday.The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, cast doubt on the little we knew of what the Moon is actually composed of. It had long been thought that meteoroids vaporize on impact with large celestial bodies. Unusual minerals like spinel and olivine found in many lunar craters, but rarely on the Moon's surface, were therefore attributed to the excavation of sub-surface lunar layers by asteroid hits. Olivine and spinel are common components of asteroids and meteorites, and have been found on the floors and around the central peaks of lunar craters like Copernicus, Theophilus and Tycho that are around 100 kilometers (63 miles) in diameter.