India's Lunar Rover Finds Evidence of the Moon's Ancient Magma Ocean
In a breakthrough discovery, India's lunar rover " Pragyan " has unveiled evidence of the Moon's ancient global magma ocean . The findings, published in Nature by an Indian research team, mark the first-ever measurements from the Moon's polar highlands , broadening our understanding of the Moon's early history. The Pragyan rover’s wheels penetrated several centimeters into the lunar soil, allowing the rover’s APXS instrument to analyze the composition of the lunar regolith below the top surface layer. Credit: ISRO Around 4.5 billion years ago, a cataclysmic collision in the early solar system led to the formation of the Moon, which was once covered by a vast ocean of molten magma. This theory gained more robust backing after Pragyan's investigation of the rocks at the Vikram lander's site, now named "Point Shiv Shakti," located near the Moon's south pole. The rover analyzed samples using an Alpha Particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS),...