Widespread hematite at high latitudes of the Moon.

Autor: Li S; Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. shuaili@hawaii.edu njushuaili@gmail.com., Lucey PG; Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA., Fraeman AA; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA., Poppe AR; Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA., Sun VZ; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA., Hurley DM; Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD 20723, USA., Schultz PH; Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Science advances [Sci Adv] 2020 Sep 02; Vol. 6 (36). Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Sep 02 (Print Publication: 2020).
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba1940
Abstrakt: Hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ) is a common oxidization product on Earth, Mars, and some asteroids. Although oxidizing processes have been speculated to operate on the lunar surface and form ferric iron-bearing minerals, unambiguous detections of ferric minerals forming under highly reducing conditions on the Moon have remained elusive. Our analyses of the Moon Mineralogy Mapper data show that hematite, a ferric mineral, is present at high latitudes on the Moon, mostly associated with east- and equator-facing sides of topographic highs, and is more prevalent on the nearside than the farside. Oxygen delivered from Earth's upper atmosphere could be the major oxidant that forms lunar hematite. Hematite at craters of different ages may have preserved the oxygen isotopes of Earth's atmosphere in the past billions of years. Future oxygen isotope measurements can test our hypothesis and may help reveal the evolution of Earth's atmosphere.
(Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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