Determining the age and composition of the Moon - new approaches and developments

Kurzfassung

Determining the age, composition and structure of the Moon have been three central objectives of lunar research ever since the first samples were returned from the lunar surface by the Apollo missions. Since then lots of different approaches have been applied to unravel the nature and evolutionary history of the Moon, and new data from recent missions but also novel modeling approaches have shed new light on the interpretation of the available data. In this presentation I want to introduce two recent studies that address new modeling approaches to better constrain the age, composition and structure of the Moon. The first study combines available observational data (including seismic and selenodetic data as well as information from lunar rock compositions and surface heat flow experiments) and models of lunar interior differentiation (including lunar magma ocean solidification and lunar mantle convection) in order to constrain the iron content of the bulk silicate Moon. The second study introduces a new approach of linking the ages of lunar surface rocks and chemical reservoirs in the mantle to the formation age of the Moon by modeling the time scales of progressive cooling of the Moon, considering lunar magma ocean solidification, mantle convection, heat piping due to partial melting in the convecting mantle and conduction through the growing crust.