The excitement was palpable when four Washington U. faculty members got together to explain just why it is so important to go back to the Moon and gather new rocks to analyze.
“The Moon is like a storage locker of early solar system history,” explained Paul Carpenter, director of the microprobe laboratory in Earth Sciences. “The youngest rock on the Moon is older than almost all the rocks on Earth.”
Professors Brad Jolliff and Randy Korotev elaborated. “The Earth is an active planet, with plate tectonics, mountains, oceans, and volcanos—things are always changing. But the Moon has been sitting there like a ‘witness plate’ for 4.5 billion years, being acted upon. If you look at the Moon and realize that all those craters have resulted from collisions with other bodies, and if you consider the common origin of the Earth and its Moon, you must conclude that the young Earth was similarly bombarded. “
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This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.