The moon could still be volcanic today

While working on lunar samples collected by the Chinese Changa 5 mission scientists made a fascinating discovery, small glass beads brought back by the lander in late 2020 reveal a stunning hint, the moon could still be volcanic today and more Even the last eruption could have occurred about 123 million years ago, which could seem like a long time, but on the geological scale of the moon it is practically recent. The discovery completely changes our view of lunar evolution and sheds new light on how small planets and moons can maintain their volcanic activity for so long, until now it was believed that volcanic activity on the moon had practically ceased. In 2014, NASA observations suggested that lunar volcanism was gradually declining, with indications that the moon may have had its last volcanic eruptions while dinosaurs still walked the Earth, but samples from the Changa 5 mission that are the first collected since the 1970s they offer the first physical evidence that volcanism could have occurred much more recently and who knows maybe it is still occurring to some degree.

According to the study published in the renowned journal Science, scientists believe that among the 3,000 small glass beads recovered, three of them were formed directly by a volcanic eruption, the others probably originated from the impact of asteroids. Now the question that remains in the air is, we are just scratching the surface of the secrets that the moon has yet to reveal to us, the answer could lie in future missions and in the studies that will surely arise from this revelation and the missions that are to come.