Lunar Dynamo May Have Generated The Moon’s Ancient Magnetic Field

Space





Photo credit:

Hernán Cañellas (provided by Benjamin Weiss)

NASA sent astronauts to the moon during the Apollo missions to resolve the composition of the moon’s interior. Unfortunately, scientists still aren’t sure if the moon’s interior is molten with a metal core, or if it’s mostly unmelted like an asteroid. There is evidence that the moon once had a very powerful magnetic field, but it isn’t known if it was caused by dynamos generated from a molten core, or through the less likely option that it came from external sources.