Scientists find 37-mile rock in Dewar suggesting lunar magnetic field
Scientists just found a giant, super-old magnetized rock on the moon's far side, and it might finally answer whether the moon once had its own magnetic field.
The 37-mile-wide rock in the Dewar region is about 4.2 billion years old and lines up with a lunar swirl and magnetic anomalies on the surface, hinting that the moon did have an internally generated magnetic field.
Find could end Apollo dynamo debate
Researchers say this find could end decades of debate sparked by Apollo mission samples, which left everyone unsure if the moon ever had a real magnetic "dynamo."
By combining gravity and magnetic data (no new samples needed), scientists now think we can focus less on if that dynamo existed and more on how it actually worked.
As Anna Mittelholz puts it, "But we are examining the question from an entirely new perspective," which could help us understand not just our moon, but other worlds out there too.