00:00By now we're all well aware that the moon isn't made of cheese, but while we have known
00:08since the first moon landing what the surface is made of, the lunar core is another story.
00:13Astronomers have long wondered what was going on under the moon's crust, and now they might
00:16finally know.
00:18Researchers have been collecting seismic data from the moon for years, which is one of the
00:21best ways to figure out the material composition of a cosmic body.
00:24That's because earthquakes, or in this case moonquakes, move through different materials
00:28in different ways.
00:29However, seismic data is quite low resolution.
00:31Now new research is using laser ranging to decipher lunar composition.
00:35So what is the moon's core made of?
00:37Well, experts say it's a dense solid center, and its density points to iron.
00:42That means the lunar core is quite similar to the one Earth has, i.e. a solid center
00:46with a liquid layer surrounding it.
00:47The new data outlines that the outer lunar core is 550 miles in diameter, and the inner
00:52is 320 miles in diameter.
00:55And each cubic meter of material weighs about 17,244 pounds, or pretty darn close to the
01:01density of iron.
01:02This also corroborates past data, and points to the moon once having a powerful magnetic
01:07field.
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