Radioactive Rock Discovered Underneath the Moon's Surface, In Its Region Known as the Compton-Belkovich 'Anomaly'

(Photo : Unsplash / Mike Petrucci)

The moon has still been the source of many new discoveries until this day, with scientists recently uncovering a radioactive rock underneath its surface. The rock was found in a region known as the Compton-Belkovich "anomaly."

Radioactive Granite Formation

According to Futurism, the discovery circles around a huge radioactive granite formation lurking underneath the Moon's far side surface. The unexpected rock formation provides researchers with additional clues regarding the moon's history.

The discovery was published in a Washington University St. Louis paper titled "Unique volcanic complex discovered on Moon's far side," it was revealed via photogeology. The paper was also published in the scientific journal Nature.

Futurism reports how research suggested that the far side of the moon, often less studied, had subsurface granite. This side of the moon always faces away from the Earth and was said to have volcanoes 3.5 billion years ago.

Phys.org reports that Matthew Siegler, study co-author and professor at the Southern Methodist University and researcher at Planetary Science Institute, said that the previous types of granite they discovered on Earth were usually used to feed many large volcanoes.

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Subsurface Igneous Rock Deposits

Siegler also explained how there were left-behind subsurface igneous rock deposits found in batholiths. These rocks found in the batholists, or cooling volcanoes, were larger compared to the volcanoes that were feeding on the surface.

Futurism gives the Sierra Nevada mountains an example of batholith since the now-extinct western volcanic chain in the United States left them. The United States Geological Survey also explains batholiths as the formation of igneous rock from magma rising to the crust without erupting to the surface.

Rock structures created by batholiths often extend across 40 square miles to an unknown depth. Researchers used microwave frequencies to find the radioactive lunar deposit's chemical makeup.

Observing the Lunar Deposit

The results of their discovery found that radioactive elements only attributed to granite were found in the deposit. This came as a surprise since granite was rarely found on the moon.

However, it was still discovered in a volcanic complex called the Compton-Belkovich "anomaly." Also, this was no small rock, as the granite measured 30 miles in diameter and described how the moon could've had larger than previously thought possible Earth-like granitic systems.

Another reason why this discovery is unique is that, without water, extreme situations are required for granite to be generated. Sieger asked, in a system without water and plate tectonics, could water have been on the moon, or was the granite formed because of extreme heat?

The hot spot was found in the Compton and Belkovich craters, which were discovered by the gamma-ray spectrometer of the Lunar Prospector back in 1998. The anomaly showed a bull's-eye projection when a map projects spectrometer data with its center containing the highest concentration of thorium.