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A new scientific study has provided a jolt of surprising data on what was
thought to be the largest and oldest impact crater on the Moon.
The lunar South Pole Aitken basin is roughly 2,500 kilometers in diameter and 13 kilometers
deep, which makes it one of the largest so-called impact craters in the entire solar system.
Scientists had theorized that the basin contain minerals from
the moon's mantle, since a tremendous kinetic energy from the hypothetical
impact would have pierced the lunar crust and brought the materials to the surface.
However, a team of scientists studying data from the Chinese spacecraft
Chang'e 4's rover have found that in reality, the predominant mineral in the
basin is common in the lunar soil.
Thus, they have not found the materials required of such a tremendous impact site.
The co-author of a new scientific study published in the Geophysical
Research Letters, says of the findings, "We are not seeing the mantle materials at
the landing site as expected."
A Phys.org report on the discovery states, "The new study complicates theories about how
the oldest, largest crater on the Moon formed, adding to the body of knowledge
about the Moon's history... The new study complicates the certainty of earlier
findings and points toward a need for continued research on the far side's lunar surface..."
Of course, the complication of scientific theories is inevitable if
only one theory is considered.
A striking example of so-called settled science, which was settled prematurely, is the
question of how the Moon got its craters.
As we entered the Space Age, the debate among geologists and astronomers had
only considered two hypotheses: impacts and volcanism.
After Apollo astronauts returned lunar samples to Earth,
analysis revealed a tremendous portion of the material was composed of shocked
and welded minerals.
Thus, the impact origin of lunar craters became the consensus scientific theory and remains so today.
But like so much settled science, the dilemma was settled without the successful resolution of countless anomalies.
Why the Moon is so heavily cratered is itself a puzzle which still demands a satisfactory answer.
The Moon and some other bodies in the solar system are so heavily cratered
that astronomers invented a violent epoch called the late heavy bombardment,
a period when disproportionate numbers of asteroids supposedly collided with
planets in the inner solar system.
One reason for the hypothesis is that isotopic dating of Moon rocks seems to
imply that the so-called impacts caused rocks to melt over a relatively short time.
But problems with the late heavy bombardment hypothesis abound, and
mainstream science continues to debate where the impacting bodies could have come from?
Astronomers have long believed that asteroids were the source of the
hypothetical bombardment.
However, in 2017, the scientific paper modeling the historical flux of planetary impactors
acknowledges that "asteroids were probably not responsible for the late
heavy bombardment.
The authors instead call on planetary migration in the early solar system and
propose that "Comets and leftovers of the terrestrial planet formation
provided additional, and probably dominant source of impacts during early epochs."
Unfortunately, mainstream scientists today seem unaware that a
sound scientific foundation exists for an entirely different hypothesis of
cratering on the Moon and other rocky bodies.
In fact, in 1965, the amateur astronomer Brian J. Ford published his
laboratory experiments suggesting that craters on the Moon were carved by
cosmic lightning bolts.
In the cited experiments, Ford used the spark machining
apparatus to reproduce in miniature some of the most puzzling lunar features,
including craters with central peaks, small craters preferentially perched on
the high rims of larger craters, and craters strung-out in long chains.
He also observed that the ratio of large to small craters on the Moon
matched the ratio seen in electrical arcing, and as with craters seen
elsewhere in the solar system, Ford remarked on the mystery of their
typical extreme circularity.
He noted that over 90% of lunar craters cannot have been produced by side-swiping impacts.
So planetary scientists concluded that the kinetic energy of an
impactor must simply be converted into powerful surface explosions.
However, highly circular craters are routinely produced in the industrial process of
electrical discharge machining.
Many years before Ford's published experiments and long before the Apollo
missions to the Moon, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had made the
outrageous prediction that remanent magnetism would be found in the lunar rocks.
Astronomers had completely rejected the idea, since the Moon today
has only a very weak magnetic field and is believed to have been geologically
dead for a billion years.
But Velikovsky based his prediction on his hypothesis of recent planetary
catastrophe, involving interplanetary lightning between celestial bodies.
Of course, like several other outrageous predictions by Velikovsky, it was proven correct.
Velikovsky's colleague, the engineer Ralph Juergens also provided a
remarkable analysis which should have been included in the scientific debate
on the Moon's history and geological features.
One of the most puzzling features of the Moon is the sinuous rille,
which is a long and winding valley, usually with steep walls and often emerging from a crater.
This feature is pervasive on the Moon at dramatically different scales.
Prior to the Apollo missions, astronomers' early hypotheses suggested
that the rilles were "cracks" on the Moon's surface.
Later guesses included flowing water until scientists settled
on flowing lava as the agent.
Today, the accepted theory is that the Moon's sinuous rilles were created either by
lava flowing across the surface or beneath the ground to form a "lava
tube," portions of which eventually collapsed.
Juergens compared the respective point-by-point requirements of various
competing theories, versus the actual observed characteristics of the rilles.
Unlike planetary scientists, Juergens included among the possible agents,
high-energy electrical discharge.
On every evidentiary point, the electrical discharge hypothesis is either
permissible or predictable, and unlike every competing hypothesis, in not a
single instance does the evidence preclude electrical discharge as the
cause of the rilles.
Even prior to Juergens'investigation, several scientists had noted that
flowing liquids, whether water or lava, could not have caused the observed
features of the lunar rilles, including the strings of craters along
the rille's floors.
These points are dramatically emphasized when we examine
the Moon's famous Hadley Rille.
Today, planetary scientists agree that the rille
is a "collapsed lava tube."
However, the rille does not match the required characteristics of lava tubes
on numerous points, most importantly the collapsed areas of a lava tube will be
rubble filled depressions.
High-resolution images of the rille reveal no rubble and no collapsed tubes.
It is simply an empty, sharply cut channel which matches the expected
characteristics of an electrical "breakdown channel."
Perhaps the greatest problem for the volcanic hypothesis of
lunar rilles is their tremendous length.
On our own planet, the longest lava tube reaches only 65 km.
That is about half the length of Hadley Rille, which is 130 km.
However, the exact opposite should be true.
On Earth, the atmosphere is insulating, allowing lava to retain its heat.
In the near-perfect vacuum of space, heat will be much more rapidly radiated away.
On our planet, as lava flows over distances no more than tens
of kilometers, the cooling at the surface causes a roof to form.
It may then continue to flow as a tube beneath the surface.
That is the only way the lava tubes can achieve even their modest lengths.
Consider then the most prominent lunar rille, called Schroeder's Valley, 185
kilometers long and up to 10 kilometers wide, with its depth at points reaching
up to 1,300 meters.
Flowing lava, eating away surface material to cut a deep
channel, would have to show up somewhere.
We should see either breaches in the deep walls or evidence of abundant outflow.
Instead, the channel simply dwindles until it disappears.
Curiously, the flow of rilles on the Moon and other
worlds isn’t limited to downhill, like lava and water-carved channels on Earth.
All fluid erosion theories for Schroeder's Valley have chosen to ignore
that the apparent mouth of the "stream" is on high ground, and the
narrowest part of the channel is on low ground.
We also note that within Schroeder's Valley is a much more narrow
secondary rille whose defining feature is a chain of small craters.
If the Moon was indeed ravaged by high-energy electrical
discharge, nothing found in decades of lunar studies is inconsistent with the hypothesis.
This includes the discovery of glass spherules, chondrules and minerals
formed at high temperatures, typically associated with volcanic lightning found
in abundance in the lunar soil.
It includes the stunning disparity in cratering between the Moon's far side,
which is massively cratered, and the Earth-facing near side, which is far less
cratered, and with considerably less crustal thickness, a disparity which
calls to mind the equally baffling Martian hemispheric dichotomy, and
similar dichotomies seen on many other rocky bodies, and it includes the many
types of craters seen throughout the solar system which are difficult or even
impossible to explain through the impact hypothesis.
From the aforementioned puzzle of smaller craters consistently
appearing on the rims of larger craters, to crater chains, weird hexagonal craters,
and craters with cleanly cut floors free of any ejecta from an explosive impact.
As we've exhaustively outlined for seven years on this series, all of these types
of craters are routinely seen in experiments with electrical discharge.
In the early Space Age, the Moon was a symbol of mankind overcoming his
physical restriction to Planet Earth, as well as extending the reach of his
knowledge of the cosmos.
Yet today, as in all of the theoretical Space Sciences, we
see an immense disconnect between popular theory and the revelations of
discovery, a disconnect which can only be resolved by willingness to explore
entirely new possibilities.
More than half a century has passed since the first footstep on the Moon.
And the possibility still exists for a "giant leap" toward a truer understanding of
the Moon's history and origins.