Researchers claim Moon turned itself inside out

The Moon formed hot and this means that it was most likely covered by a global magma ocean. As this molten rock cooled and solidified, it would have formed the Moon’s mantle and the bright crust, which is what we see when we look at the Moon. But the young Moon was “out of equilibrium” deeper below the surface. New models suggest that bits of the magma ocean crystalised into dense minerals like ilmenite, which contains titanium and iron.

“Because these heavy minerals are denser than the mantle underneath, it creates a gravitational instability, and you would expect this layer to sink deeper into the moon’s interior,” said Weigang Liang, who led the research, in a press statement.

But over the years, this dense material sank into the interior, mixed with the mantle, melted, and returned to the surface as titanium-rich lava flows that we see on the surface of the Moon.

“Our moon literally turned itself inside out. But there has been little physical evidence to shed light on the exact sequence of events during this critical phase of lunar history, and there is a lot of disagreement in the details of what went down – literally,” said co-author Jeff Andrews-Hanna, in a press statement.