Meteorites

Seismic activity in the Moon's soil could be due to impact from meteorites in the past or local heat-related effects, according to ISRO's preliminary analysis of data received from Chandrayaan-3's quake-detecting instrument. However, detailed studies are needed to get more insights from the data, they said. Their research paper, published in the journal Icarus, is a summary of observations made on 190 hours of data recorded by the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA). ILSA is one of the five major major scientific instruments, all of them carried by Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander and Pragyaan rover together. Chandrayaan-3 made a soft-landing on the Moon's south pole on August 23, 2023. The quake-detecting ILSA was operated continuously until September 2, 2023, after which it was switched off and was packed back up, before the lander was relocated to a new point roughly 50 centimetres away from the initial one, the researchers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO

A team of scientists from Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), the United States and Japan has found a unique group of ancient lunar basaltic meteorites, suggesting a new scenario for the origin of lunar basalts, according to ISRO. PRL, which is a unit of the Department of Space, carries out fundamental research in select areas of physics, space and atmospheric sciences, astronomy, astrophysics and solar physics, and planetary and geo-Sciences. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) issued a statement on Thursday saying the Moon's dark regions that are visible to the naked eye, known as the 'mare', are remnants of a violent history of the Solar System. There are no records, though, of these frenzied events on Earth. The Moon, having changed very little over billions of years, provides us a window to ponder over the past. The large mare regions on the near side of the Moon, that can be seen from Earth, mainly consists of basalts comprising volcanic rocks, it ...

About 10% of meteorites are pure iron. These form through a multi-step process in which a large molten asteroid has enough gravity to cause iron to sink to its center