![\"New](\"https:\/\/wp-assets.futurism.com\/2020\/07\/moon-million-years-younger-300x158.jpg\")
<\/div>Just A Kid<\/h2>
According to a sophisticated new model, the Moon is far younger than scientists previously thought — to the tune of some 85 million years.<\/p>
It’s not such a drastic shift when you consider how long the Moon’s been around. The research<\/a>, published Friday in the journal Science Advances<\/em>, adjusts the age of the Moon from 4.51 billion years old to 4.425 billion, with 25-million-year-long error bars on either side. But it does clarify some of the mysteries surrounding how it formed in the first place.<\/p> The prevailing theory is that a Mars-sized rock crashed into the Earth and the debris eventually consolidated to form the Moon. The still-forming Earth may have been covered by an ocean of magma<\/a> — and this new research posits that the Moon had a magma ocean<\/a> over 1,000 kilometers deep as well.<\/p> The main disagreement, however, is over how long it took that ocean to cool: Existing models said the Moon solidified after 35 million years.<\/p> “The results from the model show that the moon’s magma ocean was long-lived and took almost 200 million years to completely solidify into mantle rock,” lead author Maxime Maurice, a planetary geophysicist at the German Aerospace Center, said in a press release<\/a>.<\/p> By modeling how the composition of the Moon rocks formed by that ocean changed over time, the team was able to arrive at its new age for the Moon.<\/p> The new timeline ties neatly to the Earth’s history as well, meaning the Moon formed at about the same time as the Earth’s core.<\/p> READ MORE<\/strong>: Researchers find younger age for Earth’s moon<\/a> [German Aerospace Center]<\/p> More on the Moon:<\/strong> New Theory: the Moon Formed From Magma Blasted Away From Earth<\/a><\/em><\/p> The post Scientists Say the Moon Is Way Younger than We Thought<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p> The rest is here: Just A Kid According to a sophisticated new model, the Moon is far younger than scientists previously thought \u2014 to the tune of some 85 million years. Continue reading Magma Ocean<\/h2>
Minor Adjustment<\/h2>
Scientists Say the Moon Is Way Younger than We Thought<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"