Grand canyons formed on moon in minutes after colossal asteroid strike
A view of two large canyons on the moon radiating from the Schrödinger basinNASASVSErnie T. Wright
A vast impact crater near the moon’s south pole was formed by an asteroid moving at more than a kilometre a second, releasing energy when it struck equivalent to 130 times that of all the nuclear weapons in existence. Now, researchers say two unusually narrow and straight canyons that splay out from its centre were formed in less than 10 minutes by a chain of secondary debris impacts.
David Kring at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, has researched the 312-kilometre-wide Schrödinger crater for 15 years. Part of that was to develop possible landing sites for NASA’s Constellation programme – which sought to return people to the moon but was ended in 2009. The canyons radiating...