Earth's oldest rock discovered on the moon

On Thursday, January 24^th was published a study in Earth and Planetery Science Letters in which scientists suppose that a rock discovered on the moon by the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 contains the Earth’s oldest rock we know nowadays. It’s important to remind that until this day, the oldest minerals we knew were 4.4 billion years old. The scientists think that this rock comes from a fragment of the Earth’s crust and was ejected by one of the many meteor impacts at the time of the Earth’s formation. Besides, the rock found by Apollo 14 is perfectly preserved compared to the minerals. Since the moon is geologically inactive, airless and ancient, the latter is able to keep intact Earth’s fragments.

The rock named 14321 was collected by Alan Shepard, one of the astronauts on February 6^th, 1971. It is one of the largest stones that the Apollo missions brought back from the moon.  The stone has the size of a basketball and weighs almost 20 pounds.

 The rock found by Shepard belongs to the type of rock called breccia : it is composed of many different pieces of older stones. Moreover, the impact that made the Imbrium crater on the moon forged this rock and sent it to the Apollo 14 landing site, where Shepard found it. The scientist Bellucci focused on minerals within it called zircons to be more informed about the rock’s nature. Other scientists such as David Kring studied the rock : “So if you are looking for a relic of the most ancient geologic processes, zircon is a very good mineral to begin with.” he affirmed.

Eventually, this discovery enables us to be more informed about our planet’s history and creation. The moon is full of wealth for science : we discovered that it contains fragments from other rocky planets such as Mars and Venus. Unfortunately, the institute which is studying the rock is going to close because there are not enough tools to work on it.

Eve Bezault 207 and Nathan Coste 202

Comments

[smpnews2018]

This article was very interesting, we learnt a lot about Earth's history and the mission Apollo 14.

Benjamin Decker and Jeanne Perrien

[smpnews2018]

Whaouh ! That's awesome to find a rock which is so old on the moon. I can't believe it !

Noémie and Carla 201