A 3.8 Billion-Year-Old Remnant of a Massive Impact at Moon's South Pole

A new geologic map of the moon's Schrodinger basin paints an instant, camouflage-colored portrait of the lunar surface after a huge object struck the moon, revealing a patchwork of material, including the peak ring (inner brown ring), recent volcanic activity (red), cratering (yellow) and plains material (dark green and kelly green). The geologic record at Schrödinger is still relatively fresh because the basin is only about 3.8 billion years old; this makes it the moon's second-youngest large basin (it's roughly 320 kilometers, or 200 miles, in diameter)... Read More