NASA’s new research reveals that our Moon continuously drifts on its own axis due to the numerous impacts it endures from space.
We can observe the Moon’s surface marked with countless craters, a result of 4.25 billion years of history enduring “bombardments” from meteoroids and asteroids.
According to Science Alert, NASA’s calculations indicate that even minor impacts have disturbed the original stable position of Earth’s “unlucky” satellite, and currently, it has… drifted as much as 10 degrees off its original axis, not to mention the countless rolls and shifts it has experienced due to attacks.
The surface of Earth’s Moon is quite rugged, covered with craters – (Photo: Anh Thư).
However, planetary scientist Vishnu Viswanathan from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center offers some good news: “Based on the Moon’s frozen history, the wandering polar regions are just enough for water near the poles to remain in darkness and stable conditions for billions of years.”
The scientist from NASA refers to water in the form of ice, leading the agency and many other space organizations to believe that it still lies hidden in deep craters on the Moon’s dark side.
The Moon is “locked” to Earth, always presenting one face to us, while the other side remains shrouded in darkness. This dark side represents a promised land for space scientists, where water and other locally available materials could potentially provide resources and fuel for future spacecraft and lunar bases.
This is also why NASA is working to study how asteroids impact the Moon, to determine if these impacts are too strong to cause severe changes and lead to the Moon losing its water. Fortunately, a drift of 10 degrees is not too significant.
The lunar topography map shows various depressions and the movement of the poles. The primordial poles are represented as red dots below, while the current poles are located at the center; the black line depicts its path over 4.25 billion years – (Photo: NASA/MIT).
The reason the Moon wobbles and has drifted from its axis due to both small impacts is that every rock alters its gravitational shape, whether slightly or significantly. Accumulated over a long period, these changes are enough to lead to alterations in the movement and orientation of the celestial body.
Empty spaces carved out by asteroids cause the Moon to rotate in a manner that brings lower mass craters closer to the poles.
Planetary scientist David Smith from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shared that all these calculations were made possible by a NASA mission called GRAIL, which helped create a highly detailed map of the Moon’s gravitational field, capturing the effects of each impact crater.
This research has just been published in the Planetary Science Journal.
