Ever thought the moon could have mini landslides? Well, buckle up! Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province in the Chinese mainland just spotted brand-new moon landslides that formed since 2009. 🌕✨
The study, published in National Science Review, dives into how these shallow slides (each moving under 100,000 m³ of lunar soil) are mostly under 1 km long and 100 m wide—tiny by Earth standards! 🤏
So what’s shaking things up? Not asteroid hits, but “endogenic moonquakes”—seismic tremors originating deep inside our lunar neighbor. Think of them as internal moon shivers ruffling its surface. 🌀
After checking out imaging data from the moon’s most unstable slopes, researchers found that fewer than 30% of these slides link to fresh impact craters. Most cluster east of the Imbrium Basin, hinting at uneven seismic zones within the moon. It’s like a cosmic treasure map showing where the action’s at! 🗺️
Just like we monitor quakes back home in Nepal or the ROK to stay safe, scientists are reading lunar landslide patterns as signals of hidden moonquakes. 🌏➡️🌑
Why does this matter? Mapping these landslides helps plan where to place future seismometers—devices that “listen” for quakes—so we can finally probe the moon’s internal structure. Future lunar missions, here we come! 🚀🔊
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
