The Moon’s Far Side Is Inexplicably More Conductive, Korean Lunar Orbiter Reveals

Far side of the Moon [image credit: NASA]

The Nature article on this says: ‘Perhaps the most baffling of Danuri’s measurements was of the magnetic fields on the Moon’s far side.’ Open season for theorists!
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There’s something odd about the far side of the Moon, scientists have concluded based on data from the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter.

The results are yet to be published, but suggest a discrepancy between the conductivity of the near and far sides, which so far lacks a plausible explanation, says IFL Science.

Lunar exploration is becoming a global affair. Along with missions from the United States, China, India and Japan, the Korean Aerospace Research Institute has had an orbiter around our satellite for a year. Nicknamed Danuri, the mission is proving there is plenty the larger nations have missed.

Although the Institute is coy on the results over that time, Nature has been given advance notice of some of what has been found.

The major discovery was made in conjunction with two of NASA’s smaller satellites. The Moon does not have a global magnetic field the way the Earth does, although it once did. However, like Mars, it has some intriguing local fields.

Magnetic anomalies in lunar swirls interest planetary scientists so much NASA has considered a mission purely to explore them, using two small satellites tethered together across 180 kilometers (112 miles). Photographing the most famous of these, the Reiner Gamma Swirl in exceptional detail, was one of Danuri’s first achievements.

Unexpectedly, however, Danuri has found more widespread magnetic fields on the far side, which indicate greater conductivity deep within the Moon there. Professor Ian Garrick-Bethell of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Nature this “doesn’t make sense.”

The two reasons scientists can think of would be if the far side was hotter, or if there was more water under the surface on that side.

The latter would be of great interest to future missions looking for the most precious of resources, but no reason has been proposed for why it should be true. Simply facing away from the Earth seems unlikely to produce such an effect.

Full article here.