00:00 Soon, we might start constructing loads of stuff on the Moon.
00:07 All because India's Moon mission has recently detected sulfur near the Moon's south pole.
00:14 This chemical element can come in extremely handy for creating infrastructure on our satellite.
00:21 It's the first time this chemical element has been discovered on Earth's natural satellite.
00:27 This sought-after element is mostly found near Earth's volcanoes.
00:32 Its appearance on the Moon speaks volumes about the satellite's volcanic history and
00:36 its past atmospheric conditions.
00:41 The mission's rover detected this chemical element less than a week after touching down
00:45 around 70 degrees from the Moon's south pole on the 23rd of August, 2023.
00:52 This historic landing on the lunar surface made India the fourth country to safely land
00:57 a mission on the Moon.
01:01 It's also the first spacecraft to touch down so close to the south pole of our satellite.
01:06 It's an area of strategic importance because it's believed to be home to deposits of water
01:11 ice.
01:12 If it turns out to be true, future missions might be able to harvest it and turn this
01:17 water ice into drinking water or even rocket fuel.
01:23 For two weeks, the lander carried out the data collection, mainly focused on the analysis
01:28 of the Moon's soil and its extremely thin atmosphere.
01:32 Meanwhile, the solar-powered Pragyan rover started its quest to find frozen water on
01:38 the Moon.
01:39 As for the lander, it demonstrated another amazing feat on the 3rd of September.
01:44 The spacecraft fired up its engines and lifted itself for about 16 inches into the air.
01:51 Then it made a tiny hop to land 12 to 16 inches away from its original position.
01:56 It's kinda a big deal!
02:00 Being able to get a lander back off the surface of the Moon is essentially for future missions,
02:04 showing that they can safely return soil samples or even astronauts back home after a lunar
02:10 mission.
02:13 In September, the Indian spacecraft was put into sleeping mode.
02:17 The 14-day-long lunar night was approaching, and the spacecraft wasn't designed to collect
02:23 scientific data during this period of time.
02:26 So far, we've learned about a few major findings of the mission.
02:31 One is related to measuring the temperature of the Moon's topsoil at different depths.
02:36 Intriguingly, the surface of the satellite in that region turned out to be hotter than
02:41 expected.
02:42 It was believed that the temperature could be between 68 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit on
02:48 the surface, but it was around 158 degrees Fahrenheit, way hotter than it should be!
02:55 The other discovery indicates the presence of several chemical elements, including oxygen.
03:01 Besides, the data received from the spacecraft confirms the presence of aluminum, calcium,
03:08 iron, titanium, silicon, and other chemical elements on the lunar surface close to the
03:14 South Pole.
03:16 The rover also used special instruments designed to measure quakes and rumbles beneath the
03:21 lunar surface to detect some seismic activity.
03:26 It brings us back to the sulfur detected thanks to the rover's spectroscope.
03:32 Scientists are currently working on figuring out whether this element formed on the surface
03:36 in a natural way, or whether it's the result of volcanic activity or a meteor strike.
03:44 Another astonishing thing found on the Moon is a rock, and it may be the oldest known
03:49 Earth rock.
03:51 A 0.7-inch-wide chip included in a large rock collection brought to our planet by Apollo
03:57 astronauts might actually be a 4-billion-year-old fragment of Earth!
04:04 This finding could help us paint a better picture of the intense pounding early Earth
04:09 got at the dawn of its life.
04:13 It could go like this.
04:14 Soon after the rock formed, an asteroid impact might have blasted it from Earth.
04:19 At that time, our planet's satellite was three times closer to Earth than it is today.
04:26 The collision was so powerful that this chunk of terrestrial rock found its way to the Moon.
04:31 Later, this fragment got engulfed in a lunar breccia, a motley kind of rock.
04:37 Eventually, the rock was brought back home to Earth by Apollo 14 astronauts.
04:43 Even though scientists had found meteorites coming from Mars and the Moon before, it was
04:47 the first time a rock from the Moon turned out to be a terrestrial meteorite.
04:52 They also found out that the rock had formed in a water-rich environment at temperatures
04:57 and pressures corresponding to those at around 12 miles beneath the surface of our planet.
05:04 In 2019, China's Chang'e-4 mission made history by landing on the far side of the
05:11 Moon.
05:12 The mission's rover helped researchers visualize structures hidden deep below the surface of
05:18 the satellite, revealing billions of years of lunar history.
05:22 The Yutu-2 rover made this discovery with the help of its lunar-penetrating radar.
05:28 It imaged deep into the Moon's surface and listened to echoes of sound bouncing back
05:33 off structures hidden from view under the surface of the Moon.
05:39 It turned out those structures were resting at depths of almost 1,000 feet!
05:44 The research suggests that the first 130 feet under the surface are made up of layers of
05:49 dust, soil, and rocks.
05:52 The instruments also discovered a concealed crater that must have formed after a large
05:56 object slammed into the Moon's surface.
06:00 Long long ago, ancient lava was likely to be flowing deep underground.
06:07 Researchers believe that the broken rocks around the formation might be debris produced
06:11 by the impact.
06:13 They also found that the volcanic rock layers were thinner the closer they were to the surface.
06:19 Such a thickness variation of lava flows might mean a decrease in the number and magnitude
06:25 of eruptions over time.
06:27 So lunar volcanic activity gradually dwindled since the Moon's formation around 4.5 billion
06:34 years ago.
06:37 On the far side of the Moon, there is one of the largest and oldest impact craters in
06:42 our solar system, the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
06:45 Unfortunately, from Earth, you can only see its outer rim, which looks like a huge chain
06:50 of mountains.
06:53 It's a ginormous 8-mile deep dent, stretching for more than 1,500 miles in diameter and
06:59 covering one-fourth of the Moon's surface.
07:04 Astronomers are sure that this crater appeared when an asteroid collided with the Moon around
07:09 4 billion years ago.
07:11 And now, look at this gigantic chunk of metal the size of four states of Connecticut.
07:17 As for its weight in pounds, it's enough to say that the number contains 18 zeros.
07:23 This mysterious mass is hidden about 180 miles under the Moon's surface, somewhere in the
07:29 middle of the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
07:33 It was discovered when GRAIL, which stands for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory
07:39 mission gathered data about our natural satellite.
07:43 When examining this information, scientists noticed that in one place on the Moon's surface,
07:48 there was a weird change in gravity.
07:51 After researching this phenomenon, they included that something mysterious was weighing down
07:56 the basin floor there.
07:58 So far, researchers haven't figured out the origin of the bizarre lump, but there are
08:03 several theories.
08:06 One of them claims that the finding is a chunk of dense oxide, which appeared when the Moon
08:11 was just taking its shape.
08:13 At that time, the satellite was still covered with ancient oceans of magma, and the lump
08:17 could be formed at the final stages of its cooling.
08:21 However, most scientists support another theory, according to which the puzzling mass is part
08:27 of the giant asteroid that once created the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
08:32 Since the thing is metallic, it's probably the iron-nickel core of the asteroid.
08:38 There might be a labyrinth of lava tubes on the Moon.
08:42 Not so long ago, astronomers received the results of underground topography and discovered
08:47 a massive cave under the surface of Earth's satellite.
08:51 It could be the result of the lunar volcanic activity that happened more than 3 billion
08:56 years ago.
08:58 Tubes of lava hardened, creating a thick, hard crust on the outside.
09:04 But inside, it kept flowing, melting the rock and creating tunnels and caves.
09:10 Numerous small pits in the Moon's surface discovered by NASA seem to be the openings
09:15 to such lava tubes.
09:17 If this theory is confirmed, the underground tunnels might serve not only as a convenient
09:23 location for human-crewed space missions, but also as much-needed water sources for
09:28 astronauts.
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