Emerging Astronomers October – Reading the Moon’s Scars

Reading the Moon’s Scars

Earth was hit by asteroids and comets just as hard as the Moon was, but our craters are gone, erased by wind, water and moving continents. The Moon kept every single one. That makes its surface a history book of the early solar system and even Earth itself. In this session we’ll learn to read it: what the dark patches and light stripes are, how we worked out that some craters are billions of years old and others surprisingly young, and how a few kilograms of Moon rock let us learn about worlds we’ve never even landed on. Plus the newest scars of all – the ones being made right now.