LOS ANGELES (AP) â” Scientists say they’ve found evidence that the moon took quite a beating in its early days.
This new view of the moon comes from detailed gravity mapping by twin spacecraft, which slipped into orbit around the body earlier this year.
Below the surface, the moon’s interior is battered and cracked. That suggests that other rocky planets including Earth would have suffered similar bombardment from space rocks early in their history.
Measurements by the NASA spacecraft called Ebb and Flow also found that the moon’s crust is much thinner than scientists thought â” only about 25 miles thick.
The findings were presented Wednesday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and published online by the journal Science.
