Gregory H. Revera / Wikimedia Commons Cooling of the Moon’s core has caused it to shrink by more than 45 meters in the last few hundred million yearsGregory H. Revera / Wikimedia Commons
Like a grape shriveling up into a raisin, the Moon is shrinking and becoming more wrinkled. However, because it is not made of flexible materials like a fruit, it is deforming more violently. The number of geological faults is rising, and earthquakes and landslides are becoming more frequent. As its core has cooled, the Moon’s circumference has shrunk by more than 45 meters over the past few hundred million years. Researchers from NASA and various North American universities and research institutes found that this lunar contraction has caused the emergence of tectonic faults at the Moon’s south pole. Some of the regions affected by deformations and instability in the terrain are located in areas considered as landing sites for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, which is scheduled for 2026 and intends to take astronauts to the Moon once again. “Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said Tom Watters of the Smithsonian Institution, lead author of the paper, in a press release. He points out that this information should be taken into account when planning the location of potential future permanent outposts on the Moon (The Planetary Science Journal, January 25).
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