A private moon lander challenges ideas about lunar volcanism

The first measurements from a private spacecraft on the moon may reopen an old debate about why the moon’s Earth-facing side looks the way it does.

Instruments aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander found that the underground heat at its landing site may not differ as much as scientists expected from heat measured from Apollo landing sites, researchers report in several talks March 17 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in the Woodlands, Texas. The result could reshape thinking about how the moon’s familiar dark patches formed.

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