The thing weighs 4.8 quintillion, or 4,800,000,000,000,000,000, pounds
A monochrome mosaic of the moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, below which scientists found the giant mass. Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University The mass of the metal “anomaly” beneath the moon’s largest crater is five times greater than the big island of Hawaii, and according to a new study from scientists at Baylor University, it could contain metals remaining from an ancient asteroid impact, weighing in at around 4.8 quintillion pounds.
It sits 180 miles beneath the South Pole-Aitken basin — one of the solar system’s largest impact craters, and the moon’s oldest, at over 4 billion years — a massive dent spanning some 1,550 miles on the far side of the moon. Publishing in Geophysical Research Letters, the Baylor scientists have two theories for the origin of the huge subterranean blob.
The space rock that formed the moon’s giant basin was likely large enough to have separated into different layers when it first formed, so that like many of today’s planets, it sported a dense, metallic core and rocky outer layers.On the fateful day of its collision, the energy of the impact carved a deep bowl-shaped crater on the moon, with the impactor’s metallic core smashed up inside. But the original hole didn’t last, and the divot on the moon partially refilled with molten rock.
It might not be as compelling as the most recent space-based national story — the Navy pilots who claim they frequently encountered UFOs off the Eastern coast of the U.S. — but scientists in the field are revved up at the prospects of studying the big metal chunk. “[The basin is] one of the best natural laboratories for studying catastrophic impact events, an ancient process that shaped all of the rocky planets and moons we see today,” James told CNN.
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