Beyond the moon is its own version of the Grand Canyon. In fact, they are two of them! A new study explains how these deep canyons quickly formed during the impact of asteroids. Melissa Sevigny of Knau spoke with David Kring, a local planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute about the findings.

Why did you want to study how these canyons were formed?

Before the current Artemis program there was a constellations program… and when did NASA go to the National Academy of Sciences and what are our national priorities if we return to the moon? It was on the other side of the moon hidden from our vision and was the best place to do science. For the past 15 years, we have been studying the Schrödinger Impact Basin. I have recently paid attention to the remains that have been driven out of the basin and have looked closely at these two canyons.

This is the impact basin across the moon and has these two canyons. They appear to be emitting radiation from there.

A diameter of about 25km, about 25km, hit the surface of the moon about 3.8 billion years ago, and in the process of excavating the basin, it was determined that it had threw curtains of debris at it. . The material then rolled up an arch material on the moon and then crashed. Staccato’s fashion, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, craters have created a series of shock craters. These were huge craters, which were 1,000 times larger than our own meteor craters just below. All these impact craters formed these long, linear, radial canyons.

I remember in the paper you showed side by side how they looked compared to the Grand Canyon. Please tell me about that.

Everyone is familiar with our beloved Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon. It’s roughly, if you go about 25km along the bright angel trail, that’s it. Our canyons are similar, 20-27km across from us. They are a little deeper, 2.7-2.5 km deep. Boy, that would be a hike! And they’re just huge. One thing the calculations showed is that they are generated very quickly. We all know that it takes millions of years to carve in the Grand Canyon… in this shock process these canyons were excavated in minutes.

I’m interested, many people know what it’s like to hike from the rims of the Grand Canyon to the river. If you were standing on the moon, what would it be like hiking these canyons?

With the exception of craters, the terrain on the moon is smoother. There is always a continuous bombardment of small asteroids and comets. You are constantly coming and going in and out of small craters. But with that exception, it is smooth and a more open canyon. If you were standing on the rim, you can look down at the length of this canyon from the rim, not what you can do in our Grand Canyon.

What you’re so excited about studying these types of processes is that you know, does it affect a crater or something that impacts other things?

First of all, this landscape. Imagine – these canyons are the size of the Grand Canyon! Incidentally, they are not too far from Mount Everest from Mountain Summit. The Antarctic region of the Moon and the scenery beyond are just extraordinary. I tell people that if it’s on the planet, these will become national or international parks. …. But it’s its downstream appearance, an opportunity to explore that area of ​​the moon and begin stitching together the early history of the moon. People, why do we need to study the moon? When we are studying these early periods of the moon, we point out that we are effectively studying the earliest era of the erased Earth. If you really want to understand what happened in the first 5-600 million years of Earth’s history, you have no choice but to go to the moon. It’s fun to go to the moon and understand and appreciate that you have a better understanding of the home.

It’s lovely, I really like it. David King, thank you for talking to me today.

you’re welcome.

Read the research: Grand Canyon of the Moon | Nature Communications