Chronological evidence that the Moon is either young or did not have a global magma ocean

摘要

对在靠近“阿波罗-16”登月舱降落点附近收集到的一个月球岩石所做的一次新的年代测定测定工作，发现其年龄之轻让人吃惊--只有大约43．6亿年。按照这个年龄，月球要么应当是太阳系形成之后大约2亿年固化的(这个时间显著迟于大多数月球形成模型的假设)，要么人们长期所坚持的、认为月球曾经有个原始岩浆海洋的理论是有缺陷的。%Chemical evolution of planetary bodies, ranging from asteroids to the large rocky planets, is thought to begin with differentiation through solidification of magma oceans many hundreds of kilometres in depth1"3. The Earth's Moon is the archetypical example of this type of differentiation. Evidence for a lunar magma ocean is derived largely from the widespread distribution, compositional and mineralogical characteristics, and ancient ages inferred for the ferroan anorthosite (FAN) suite of lunar crustal rocks.