GRAND CANYONS OF THE MOON

WASHINGTON and HOUSTON, Feb. 4, 2025 ~ A team of scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), an institute of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), has made a groundbreaking discovery on the lunar far side. According to their findings, two massive canyons hidden on the Moon's far side are comparable in size to Earth's Grand Canyon. The results of their research were published today in Nature Communications.

Lead author David Kring, from USRA, explains that these two remarkable features were created during a time of great planetary upheaval when both Earth and the Moon were being resurfaced by impacts from asteroids and comets. "Nearly four billion years ago," Kring states, "an asteroid or comet flew over the lunar south pole, brushing against the mountain summits of Malapert and Mouton before crashing into the lunar surface." This impact caused high-energy streams of rock to be ejected, carving out two canyons that are equivalent in size to Earth's Grand Canyon. However, unlike the gradual formation of the Grand Canyon over millions of years, these lunar canyons were formed in less than 10 minutes.

The impacting asteroid or comet is estimated to have been traveling at a speed of 55,000 kilometers per hour (35,000 miles per hour) when it hit the lunar surface. This impact created a massive 320-kilometer-diameter basin known as Schrödinger and propelled rocky debris that carved deep grooves into the Moon's surface.

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The investigation into these canyons began with second author Danielle Kallenborn during her undergraduate internship with Kring at USRA's LPI in Houston. She also collaborated with impact cratering specialist Gareth Collins from Imperial College London where she is currently pursuing her doctoral thesis studies. Kallenborn was captivated by studying this distant past when impacts were shaping our Moon. "Analyzing the Schrödinger impact event showed me how fascinating the Moon is as a research target," she says. "The lunar surface is like a timestamp of the early times of our solar system."

Using images and elevation data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, the authors were able to determine that the canyons, named Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck, are 20 to 27 kilometers wide, 2.7 to 3.5 kilometers deep, and 270 to 860 kilometers long.

The team also calculated the trajectory of the ejected debris that created these canyons. They found that after flying over the lunar surface, the debris hit at speeds of about 1 kilometer per second (3600 kilometers per hour or 2237 miles per hour), producing secondary impact craters that formed the canyons.

Co-author Gareth Collins adds, "The Schrödinger crater is similar in many regards to Earth's Chicxulub crater, which is believed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs. By understanding how these km-deep canyons were formed, we gain insight into just how powerful these impacts can be."

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The energy required to create these grand canyons on the Moon is estimated to be about 130 times greater than all of Earth's nuclear weapons combined.

Interestingly, most of the excavated rock was ejected away from the lunar south polar region, which will soon be explored by astronauts as part of NASA's Artemis program. This means that astronauts will have easier access to collect samples from an even older epoch in lunar history. Additionally, these two canyons provide a unique opportunity to study material that was once buried two or three kilometers beneath the lunar surface.

Dr. Kring notes that not only is this geology extraordinary but so are the views it offers. "The splendor of these canyons is so dramatic that if they were exposed on Earth, they would be national or international parks."

The article, titled "Two Grand Canyons on the Moon," can be found in Nature Communications with the DOI number https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55675-z. This discovery sheds new light on the early history of our solar system and highlights the importance of continued exploration and research on our closest celestial neighbor.

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