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Scientists say the moon's south pole was once covered by an ocean of liquid molten rock.
The results support a theory that magma formed the moon's surface about 4.5 billion years ago.
The remnants of the ocean were found by India's historic Chandrayaan-3 mission that landed on the South Pole last August.
The mission explored this isolated and mysterious region where no spacecraft had ever landed before.
These results help support an idea called the lunar magma ocean theory of how the Moon formed.
Scientists believe that when the Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago, it began to cool and a lighter mineral called iron anorthosite floated to the surface. This molten mineral formed the Moon's surface.
The team behind the new findings has found evidence of iron anorthosite in Antarctica.
“The theory of the early evolution of the Moon becomes more robust in light of our observations,” said Dr. Santosh Vadavalli of the Physical Research Laboratory, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Prior to India's mission, the main evidence for the existence of magma oceans at the Moon's mid-latitudes was found as part of the Apollo program.
Professor Vandawali and his team were at the control centre during Chandrayaan 3.
“It was a really exciting time,” says Professor Vadavalli. “Sitting in the control room and driving the vehicle on the lunar surface – it was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
When India's lander, called Vikram, touched down at the South Pole last August, it ejected a spacecraft called Pragyan.
Pragyan orbited the Moon's surface for 10 days, while Professor Vadavalli and his colleagues worked around the clock to guide it to collect data at 70 degrees south latitude.
The robot is built to withstand temperature fluctuations between 70 degrees Celsius and -10 degrees Celsius, and can make its own decisions about how to navigate the uneven, dusty lunar surface.
23 measurements were made using a device called the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer. This device essentially excites atoms and analyzes the energy produced in order to identify minerals in lunar soil.
The team of scientists also found evidence of a huge meteorite falling in the area four billion years ago.
The collision is believed to have created the South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest craters in the solar system, measuring 2,500 kilometers across.
It is located about 350 km from the site explored by the Indian rover Prayam.
But scientists have discovered magnesium, which they believe came from deep within the moon, where it was ejected by impact and pushed toward the surface.
“This could have been the result of a large asteroid impact, which ejected material from this large basin. In the process, a deeper part of the moon was also excavated,” said Professor Anil Bhardwaj, director of the Physical Research Laboratory in India.
These results are just part of the scientific data collected during the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which eventually hopes to detect water ice in Antarctica.
This discovery will be a major turning point in space agencies' dreams of building a human base on the moon.
India plans to launch another mission to the moon in 2025 or 2026, where it hopes to collect samples from the lunar surface and return them to Earth for analysis.
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