Learning to explore the Moon in a Canadian meteorite crater

Uploaded on July 19, 2024

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Learning to explore the Moon in a Canadian meteorite crater

2024-07-19 — Over 50 years ago, Apollo astronauts brought back samples of the Moon that are still being studied to this day. Yet, we still have much to learn about the Moon. CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons explains how Artemis astronauts are preparing for future missions on the lunar surface by learning about the geological processes that have happened on the Moon and our own planet. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Jenni Gibbons: So one of the main goals of the Artemis missions is, of course, to learn about our own planet and our own Moon. 

And one of the main ways that we can do that is through geology, teaching the astronauts that are going there about the geological processes that have happened on the Moon and also happened on our own planet.

Obviously, we have many other forces and processes which are changing the surface of the Earth. We have erosion and we have the elements acting always to augment what's happened in these geological processes that formed our Earth. 

But a lot of similar processes have been acting on the Moon without those other forces to change them. So they're much more visible.

I've heard a geologist compare that to having a celestial library in our own backyard.

This geology training presents an opportunity for us as astronauts to learn how to look around us and make observations at a site that is similar to one that we might encounter if astronauts were on the Moon.

This is an impact crater that happened around 35 million years ago.

And a lot of the features that are here and the rock that the impact crater happened in are similar to what we might see on some of those lunar sites that we're looking at.

There's so much that we still have to learn about the geology on the Moon and so many different samples that we can collect.

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