Apollo-era data reveals details of moon's core

By Nola Redd
Space.com
updated 1/6/2011 6:06:42 PM ET 2011-01-06T23:06:42

Signals from seismic sensors left on the lunar surface by Apollo astronauts in the 1970s have revealed new insight into the moon's core, thanks to a fresh analysis using 21st century computing power.

The new study provides the first confirmation of layering of the moon's core and suggests that the moon, like Earth, has a solid inner core surrounded by a molten outer core, researchers said. But the moon's interior also has another layer of partially melted material – a ring of magma – around its outer core, the study found.

The findings come from data collected by four seismometers deployed on the moon by NASA astronauts between 1969 and 1972 during the space agency's six manned Apollo lunar landings. The seismometers kept working until 1977.

"The data itself has been in continual use since the Apollo era," said the study's lead author Renee Weber of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Most information about the composition of the center of the moon has been inferred from things such as its rotation, tidal distortion and magnetic field. However, there has been little hard data to draw on, researchers said.
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more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40955136/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Please forward to Loofa Boy, Thank You.

The fact that these two stories made the news at about the same time is disconcerting, to say the very least. :(