Produced by: Tarun Mishra
Reanalysis of archived data from NASA's Apollo missions revealed a substantial increase in known moonquakes, shedding light on previously undetected seismic events on the moon.
A meticulous review of Apollo mission records uncovered approximately 22,000 previously unknown moonquakes, significantly expanding the total count from the initial 13,000 recorded between 1969 and 1977.
Moonquakes, akin to earthquakes, result from internal movements within the Moon, primarily driven by temperature changes and meteorite impacts, rather than tectonic plate shifts due to the moon's lack of such geological features.
The groundbreaking findings were presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, offering valuable insights into the moon's seismic activity landscape.
Previously disregarded short-period data, fraught with interference from temperature fluctuations and transmission issues, went into re-evaluation, leading to the identification of thousands of overlooked moonquake events.
Despite neglect following the Apollo missions, a copy of the abandoned short-period data, crucial for this discovery, was preserved by retired geophysicist Yosio Nakamura, ensuring its availability for future analysis.
Through meticulous data processing and denoising techniques, researcher Keisuke Onodera identified over 30,000 potential moonquake candidates, ultimately confirming 22,000 as genuine lunar seismic events.
Recent lunar missions, such as India's Chandrayaan-3, provided promising opportunities to deepen our understanding of moonquakes, with future endeavours like NASA's lunar seismometers poised to validate and expand upon the findings of this study.