The moon's axis is believed to have shifted because of lunar volcanoes more than three million years ago, moving it about 125 miles from its original location, suggests new research in the journal Nature.
Researchers theorize that the moon had once tilted differently after examining its current north and south poles, and finding lunar ice in places they did not expect, according to
The Guardian.
"The discovery of ice on the poles of the moon was probably one of the most significant discoveries in lunar science ever," Ian Garrick-Bethell, an assistant professor of planetary sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, told The Guardian.
"This goes one step further," Garrick-Bethell added, who was not involved the study's research.
Planetary scientist Matt Siegler and other researchers were studying the moon's lunar polar hydrogen when they noticed the offset of ice at the north and south poles by the same distance, according to a
Southern Methodist University news release.
That offset suggest that the moon's axis likely shifted at least six degrees over a period of about one billion years, Siegler said.
"This was such a surprising discovery," said Siegler, who is also a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "We tend to think that objects in the sky have always been the way we view them, but in this case the face that is so familiar to us – the Man on the Moon – changed."
"Billions of years ago, heating within the Moon's interior caused the face we see to shift upward as the pole physically changed positions. It would be as if Earth's axis relocated from Antarctica to Australia. As the pole moved, the Man on the Moon turned his nose up at the Earth."
Ancient volcanic activity about 3.5 million years ago melted part of the moon's mantle, causing it spew onto its surface, changing the moon's mass internally, said the SMU researchers.
Siegler said that is when the moon likely started to relocate its axis, shifting it about 125 miles from its original location.
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