In a Huge Breakthrough Scientists Have Finally Found What Moon's Inner Core Is Made Of, Say It's Similar to Earth

Scientists have made a huge breakthrough in their pursuit of lunar examination. For decades astronomers have been trying to understand the interior composition of Earth's only satellite, Science Alert reported. It has not been an easy pursuit by any means, but after years of examination, researchers have managed to conclude.

Experts from the French National Centre for Scientific Research claimed that the moon's inner core is close to that of a substance like iron. Findings regarding this analysis have been published in Nature.

This finding concludes the decades-long debate of whether the Moon's core is solid or liquid, The Jerusalem Post reported. The results show it is solid and as per experts, is a pivotal step in understanding how the Moon evolved through various millennia. Researchers further hope that the outcome will add to the data they already have about the Solar System. 

Astronomers were always aware that the best way to find out about the moon's inner composition is through seismic data, Science Alert reported.  Apollo mission collected the lunar seismic data but its resolution turned out to be so low that researchers failed to get any meaningful findings regarding the inner core from it. Experts were able to figure out that there was a fluid outer layer from the data, but the inner composition remained a mystery. 

Astronomer Arthur Briaud and some of his colleagues in the French National Centre for Scientific Research decided to expand their scope for collecting significant lunar seismic data, Science Alert reported. They considered the findings of various space missions and lunar laser-ranging experiments and formed a detailed lunar profile. Some of the characteristics they focussed on while making this profile were the degree of the moon's deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, the variation in the satellite's distance from Earth, and its density.

They created models of various core types with the observations they had in their hands from the profiling. The model that closely aligned with their observations had an active overturn deep inside the lunar mantle. This implies that the denser material was moving towards the center while the lighter one was rising upwards.

The model also revealed that the lunar core was very similar to the Earth's core. Both have an outer fluid layer encompassing a solid inner core. The observations were used to calculate the inner core's density which came to be around 7,822 kilograms per cubic meter, which is similar to that of iron. 

Researchers hope these findings help them to solve the mystery of the moon's magnetic field. It is widely speculated that during the moon's initial years, the satellite had a strong magnetic field. This magnetic field began to deteriorate 3.2 billion years ago, and nobody knows how this happened. Experts believe information about the lunar core and its formation is deeply relevant in solving the case of the missing magnetic field.