The Crust of the Moon as Seen by GRAIL
- Creators
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Wieczorek, Mark A.
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Neumann, Gregory A.
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Nimmo, Francis
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Kiefer, Walter S.
- Taylor, G. Jeffrey
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Melosh, H. Jay
- Phillips, Roger J.
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Solomon, Sean C.
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Andrews-Hanna, Jeffrey C.
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Asmar, Sami W.
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Konopliv, Alexander S.
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Lemoine, Frank G.
- Smith, David E.
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Watkins, Michael M.
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Williams, James G.
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Zuber, Maria T.
Abstract
High-resolution gravity data obtained from the dual Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft show that the bulk density of the Moon's highlands crust is 2550 kilograms per cubic meter, substantially lower than generally assumed. When combined with remote sensing and sample data, this density implies an average crustal porosity of 12% to depths of at least a few kilometers. Lateral variations in crustal porosity correlate with the largest impact basins, whereas lateral variations in crustal density correlate with crustal composition. The low-bulk crustal density allows construction of a global crustal thickness model that satisfies the Apollo seismic constraints, and with an average crustal thickness between 34 and 43 kilometers, the bulk refractory element composition of the Moon is not required to be enriched with respect to that of Earth.
Additional Information
The GRAIL mission is supported by the Discovery Program of NASA and is performed under contract to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Additional support for this work was provided by the French Space Agency (CNES), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and the UnivEarthS LabEx project of Sorbonne Paris Cité. Data products will be made available from the authors upon request.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 119700
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20230307-22080000.23
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Sorbonne Université
- Created
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2023-03-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-03-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field