ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 data confirms Moon's surface was once covered in an ocean of magma

ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission finds evidence of Moon’s magma ocean

Data from ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission has bolstered the hypothesis that the Moon once had a "magma ocean," according to a study published in Nature. This conclusion stems from the analysis of lunar soil, gathered by the Pragyan rover during its exploration of a 100-meter stretch on the Moon’s surface.

The rover, deployed by the Vikram lander, touched down near the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023. Chandrayaan-3, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), includes both the lander and rover. Previous lunar missions, like NASA's Apollo and the Soviet Union's Luna, mostly collected soil samples from the Moon’s equatorial and mid-latitude regions.

However, Pragyan's data, collected from the Moon's south pole, revealed that the lunar soil predominantly consists of ferroan anorthosite (FAN), a type of rock. This discovery mirrors findings from earlier missions, suggesting that the Moon’s crust may have a uniform composition, regardless of location. This supports the widely accepted "lunar magma ocean" theory, which proposes that the Moon’s early development involved its entire mantle melting into magma. As it cooled, less dense FAN floated to the surface to form the crust, while heavier minerals sank to form the mantle beneath it.

This theory also explains the Moon’s formation, which is believed to have resulted from a collision between two protoplanets, with the larger forming the Earth and the smaller becoming the Moon. The Moon's intense heat during formation caused its mantle to melt, creating the so-called magma ocean.

However, the Chandrayaan-3 data also detected magnesium in the lunar soil, an observation that challenges the lunar magma ocean hypothesis. Some recent re-analysis of Apollo mission samples has also raised questions about the theory. Despite these contradictions, the authors of the study maintain that the uniform composition of the lunar soil and the overall geological context still largely support the magma ocean hypothesis.

The data collected by Pragyan came from an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) mounted on the rover, which analyzed the elements in the soil around the landing site. This site was named "Shiv Shakti Point" on August 26, 2023.