Following his team's discovery last year of the world's oldest diamond trapped inside zircon crystals in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, Nemchin applied to NASA to use the same dating techniques on moon rock. "For us the projects are related," Nemchin said. "At this stage we believe a similar magma ocean once covered Earth." "There is a common point in time when the moon was formed in a collision with Earth. The question then is whether the two magma oceans were the result of this collision or the terrestrial magma ocean was before this collision." Nemchin said it is important to understand the details of the Earth's evolution as it "defines the whole history of the planet." "If we understand what is going on [back] then, we will understand much better what we see now," he said. The zircon grain supplied by NASA came from the Apollo 17 mission which landed at Taurus Litro on Dec. 11, 1972. Nemchin said it appears this landing site is the "most promising" in terms of looking at the early history of the moon. Related Links: Irene Klotz's blog: Free Space |
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