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Lava lakes on the moon?


Guest The Doodling Astronaut

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I’ve heard about lava lakes on our moon. How do they form? I didn’t really hear about these lakes until recently. Thank you for answers.

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1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

From what I recall, back when the core was more liquid than today, massive impacts cracked the crust and lava flowed forth.

Yes back the first million years after the moon formed it just had an thin crust so impact punched trough this crust letting lava flow. Might also be other effects like tides as the moon was very close to the earth back then.  The moon is so small it cools fast and this stops happen by the time of the late heavy bombardment as I understand. 

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What's really interesting is that there are so many marias on the near side of the moon but so few of them on the far side. Possibly that means the far side crust is thicker? Maybe that's why it ended up being the far side, due to tidal forces?

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Or vice versa, the thicker and heavier part is the visible one, so it always looks "down".

I.e. the Moon has turned with the most craterized part down, as it was heavier.

Got it. You mean that the crust is less dense.

Edited by kerbiloid
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58 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

What's really interesting is that there are so many marias on the near side of the moon but so few of them on the far side. Possibly that means the far side crust is thicker? Maybe that's why it ended up being the far side, due to tidal forces?

I believe the theory is that the Earth shelters the near side, absorbing or steering away many things headed for the near side of they pass by Earth first. 

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If the Moon was craterized by the so-called "Late Heavy Bombardment", it would be craterized uniformly, because the Moon is moving around the Earth, and the day of the month plays no role for a guest asteroid.

So, as there is no "LHB" traces on the Earth, and the Venusian surface is considered volcanic and young, and the Mercury is hardly explored, we should presume that the so-called "Late Heavy Bombardment" is a product of Hollywood kaboom aesthetics, sounding more impressive for potential grant givers than the dull evolutionary processes.

Everything should impact and explode, otherwise it's not a science. 

***

As the newborn Moon was tidally locked (it should be, because it anyway appeared next to the Roche limit), this means that it had "prograde" and "retrograde" sides.

As the newborn Moon was spiralling away from the Earth, it should hit and collect other satellites and proto-Moon remains, so we don't have any.

And it should be doing that with its prograde side. (Because they were on higher orbits, so slower.)

In this case one side (prograde) should be createrized more than the opposite one. (checked).

The Moon is tidally locked, so the core should have an offset in the Earth direction, down to the Earth.

So, looks like that the then-prograde side is now the visible one, and the iron core is shifted towards it.

But the core was also shifted towards the Earth. So, for some reason it migrated towards the prograde side, most craterized, and it became the "visible" side of the Moon.

As no more marias appeared on the non-craterized sides, we can presume that the Earth was out of moons to that moment, so no new maria appeared.

The question is why the core migrated towards the  prograde side.
The cracked side became weaker, so the core just passed where it could. 

But the core couldn't move from the lowest position, because of tidal forces.
So, it was bending the mantle matter beneath like a tank wheel bends a track band, until the weakest, cracked side of the Moon from prograde became "visible", and the CoM position got happy.

Edited by kerbiloid
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3 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I believe the theory is that the Earth shelters the near side, absorbing or steering away many things headed for the near side of they pass by Earth first. 

Makes some sense as we believe the moon formed very close in as in as close as it could form. However earth would still just shield an faction of the near part of the moon. Gravity probably help more but also redirect more to hit the moon. guess the earth side crust was thinner so that period of impacts was not preserved. As the moon moved outward the inner solar system junk was cleared out and the late heavy bombardment was after the moon crust was to thick to create lava lakes. 

Now this is relevant because lava tubes who on the moon could easy be large enough to house cities and more important hold lots of ice. 
Grab the resources on the moon now before other do. 
Rule 1 possession is 9/10 of the law, 2 the rest is firepower to hold it, having friends with firepower counts. 

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1. How could an asteroid distinguish one side from another?

2. The Earth is 12.7 Mm wide, the lunar orbit is 2.4 mln Mn long.
The Earth is just five millionth part of the full lunar orbit. A little little for a shield.

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After posting this I saw an article that suggested perhaps the heat from the still-molten Earth kept the near side of the moon molten while the far side solidified first. That might explain why the far side crust is much thicker than the near side.

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