Curtin University | 2020 Oct 07
New international research into the Moon provides scientists with insights as to how and why its crust is magnetised, essentially ‘debunking’ one of the previous longstanding theories. ...
“There are two long term hypotheses associated with why the Moon’s crust might be magnetic: One is that the magnetisation is the result of an ancient dynamo in the lunar core, and the other is that it’s the result of an amplification of the interplanetary magnetic field, created by meteoroid impacts,” Dr Miljkovic said.
“Our research is a deep numerical study that challenges that second theory – the impact-related magnetisation – and it essentially ‘debunks’ it. We found that meteoroid impact plasmas interact much more weakly with the Moon compared to the magnetisation levels obtained from the lunar crust.
“This finding leads us to conclude that a core dynamo is the only plausible source of the magnetisation of the Moon’s crust.” ...
Was the Moon Magnetized by Impact Plasmas? ~ Rona Oran et al
- Science Advances 6(40):abb1475 (02 Oct 2020) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1475