The Earth’s oxygen may have been rusting the moon for billions of years, Nasa scientists have suggested.
Haematite, the iron oxide mineral, has been discovered at high latitudes on the moon, where the surface and interior is almost entirely devoid of oxygen.
Iron is highly reactive with oxygen, and forms the reddish rust commonly seen on Earth.
Additionally, hydrogen in solar wind blasts the lunar surface, which acts in opposition to oxidation.
This makes the presence of highly oxidised iron-bearing minerals on the moon an unexpected discovery.
Lead author Shuai Li, assistant researcher at the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP), explained that his team's hypothesis is that "lunar haematite is formed through oxidation of lunar surface iron by the oxygen from the Earth’s upper atmosphere".
This oxygen "has been continuously blown to the lunar surface by solar wind when the moon is in Earth’s magnetotail during the past several billion years," he said.
Researchers from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and elsewhere analysed data acquired by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, which orbited the lunar surface in 2008.
“When I examined the M3 data at the polar regions, I found some spectral features and patterns are different from those we see at the lower latitudes or the Apollo samples,” Prof Li said.
“I was curious whether it is possible that there are water-rock reactions on the moon. After months of investigation, I figured out I was seeing the signature of haematite.”
According to the researchers, the locations where haematite is present are strongly correlated with water content at high latitude.
Prof Li added: “More haematite on the lunar nearside suggested that it may be related to Earth.
“This reminded me of a discovery by the Japanese Kaguya mission that oxygen from the Earth’s upper atmosphere can be blown to the lunar surface by solar wind when the Moon is in the Earth’s magnetotail.
“So, Earth’s atmospheric oxygen could be the major oxidant to produce haematite. Water and interplanetary dust impact may also have played critical roles.”
The study, published in Science Advances, also found that haematite is not completely absent from the far side of the moon where Earth’s oxygen may have never reached.
Researchers say the small amount observed at lunar high latitudes may have contributed significantly to the haematite formation process on the far side of the moon.
“Earth may have played an important role in the evolution of the moon’s surface,” Prof Li concluded.
