The end of the lunar dynamo

Magnetic measurements of the lunar crust and Apollo samples indicate that the Moon generated a dynamo magnetic field lasting from at least 4.2 until <2.5 billion years (Ga) ago. However, it has been unclear when the dynamo ceased. Here, we report paleomagnetic and (40)Ar/(39)Ar studies showing th...

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Autores principales: Mighani, Saied, Wang, Huapei, Shuster, David L., Borlina, Cauȇ S., Nichols, Claire I. O., Weiss, Benjamin P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2020
Materias:
Research Articles
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6938704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31911941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0883
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author Mighani, Saied
Wang, Huapei
Shuster, David L.
Borlina, Cauȇ S.
Nichols, Claire I. O.
Weiss, Benjamin P.
author_facet Mighani, Saied
Wang, Huapei
Shuster, David L.
Borlina, Cauȇ S.
Nichols, Claire I. O.
Weiss, Benjamin P.
author_sort Mighani, Saied
collection PubMed
description Magnetic measurements of the lunar crust and Apollo samples indicate that the Moon generated a dynamo magnetic field lasting from at least 4.2 until <2.5 billion years (Ga) ago. However, it has been unclear when the dynamo ceased. Here, we report paleomagnetic and (40)Ar/(39)Ar studies showing that two lunar breccias cooled in a near-zero magnetic field (<0.1 μT) at 0.44 ± 0.01 and 0.91 ± 0.11 Ga ago, respectively. Combined with previous paleointensity estimates, this indicates that the lunar dynamo likely ceased sometime between ~1.92 and ~0.80 Ga ago. The protracted lifetime of the lunar magnetic field indicates that the late dynamo was likely powered by crystallization of the lunar core.
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spelling pubmed-69387042020-01-07 The end of the lunar dynamo Mighani, Saied Wang, Huapei Shuster, David L. Borlina, Cauȇ S. Nichols, Claire I. O. Weiss, Benjamin P. Sci Adv Research Articles Magnetic measurements of the lunar crust and Apollo samples indicate that the Moon generated a dynamo magnetic field lasting from at least 4.2 until <2.5 billion years (Ga) ago. However, it has been unclear when the dynamo ceased. Here, we report paleomagnetic and (40)Ar/(39)Ar studies showing that two lunar breccias cooled in a near-zero magnetic field (<0.1 μT) at 0.44 ± 0.01 and 0.91 ± 0.11 Ga ago, respectively. Combined with previous paleointensity estimates, this indicates that the lunar dynamo likely ceased sometime between ~1.92 and ~0.80 Ga ago. The protracted lifetime of the lunar magnetic field indicates that the late dynamo was likely powered by crystallization of the lunar core. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2020-01-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6938704/ /pubmed/31911941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0883 Text en Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Mighani, Saied
Wang, Huapei
Shuster, David L.
Borlina, Cauȇ S.
Nichols, Claire I. O.
Weiss, Benjamin P.
The end of the lunar dynamo
title The end of the lunar dynamo
title_full The end of the lunar dynamo
title_fullStr The end of the lunar dynamo
title_full_unstemmed The end of the lunar dynamo
title_short The end of the lunar dynamo
title_sort end of the lunar dynamo
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6938704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31911941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0883
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