Spheres Of Glass In Moon Soil

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32053, 30 July 1969, Page 17

Spheres Of Glass In Moon Soil

(N.Z.P. A.-Renter—Copyright)

HOUSTON, July 29.

Fragments of the moon’s surface—which scientists so far say are little different from the earth’s surface—will be brought into contact with mice today.

The purpose is to see if the moon soil, shown by preliminary analysis to be “like a very, very poor earth soil,” contains any organisms hostile to earth life.

Scientists at the Lunar Receiving

Laboratory consider this extremely unlikely and a first look ,at the organic content of the material indicates that it would be very difficult for lunar soil to bear life.

While many of the rock samples were igneous, they said, the samples contained a high content of titanium oxide, which is rarely found on the earth’s surface. Many of them already convinced that the moon craters, lined with globules of shiny glass, were formed by volcanic action, discovered lustrous, remarkably smooth, minute spheres of glass. A panel of research scientists agreed at a press briefing that every rock they had seen so far could have been found on earth.

The scientists have only examined the lunar material through viewing ports in the vacuum chamber where they are kept pending biological clearance. Dr Don Morrison, a petrologist, said the most common type of rock appeared to be “crystalline, possibly igneous

| (formed by fire) in nature.” Professor Eugene Shoemaker, of the California Institute of Technology, said that he was convinced that the evidence so far was “overwhelming” that the marae (seas) were built up by lava flows.

His colleagues were more cautious, but most agreed that the tiny glass spheres, ranging in colour from brown to yellow to opaque, were formed by the lunar surface being bombarded by fragments from space. Dr Cliff Frondel, a mineralogist, of Harvard University, said that similar melting of material caused by the great heat of impact could be found on earth at the scene of meteorite impacts, only in the form of droplets of iron. He said that he thought the tiny globlets of glass, showered on the lunar surface, might have been responsible for the remarks by the astronauts that the lunar surface was slippery.

Dr Shoemaker said he believed the average age of the Sea of Tranquillity, where the Apollo 11 astronauts landed, was less than 500,000,000 years. Other seas might prove to be considerably younger, he said. The scientists also reported that they had not yet completed analysis of the gas drawn off the lunar material sample box before it was opened on Sunday. The high percentage of titanium oxide, which was described by Dr Paul Gast, of Columbia University, as being “out of the range of all meteorites,” indicates that the igneous rocks on the moon have a somewhat different composition from those of the earth.

The initial results of the studies of the rocks were based on observations of about 730 fragments that were packed in a box brought back to ■’he Manned Spacecraft Centre. Most of the rocks were described as being of three different types: scortiatious, those having bubbles of gas caused by the cooling of lavalike material; vesicular, those also having gas-caused cavities but with smaller bubbles and fragments, presumably of lava; and meteoritic material. Dr Gast said that the most exciting discovery to date has been that of the glass.

Moon dust was also said to coagulate in little clods of

fine-grained material by repetitive impact of small meteorites. This gave the lunar material a consistency of lumpy soil. A six-inch core sample of the moon that was split diagonally showed very little evidence of layering.

Scientists made a tenative identification of “several common rock-forming minerals,” found in glassy material. Dr C. Frondel, said the minerals tentatively identified include feldspar, pyroxene and olivine. Feldspar is the most common mineral in earth rocks, pyroxene is a type of silicate and olivine is usually found in the form.