By analyzing minerals brought back by the 1971 Apollo mission, a new study from UCLA shows that the moon is 40 million to 140 million years older than scientists previously thought.

A UCLA-led research team reports that the moon is at least 4.51 billion years old, or 40 million to 140 million years older than scientists previously thought.

The findings — based on an analysis of minerals from the moon called zircons that were brought back to Earth by the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 — are published January 11 in the journal Science Advances.

The moon’s age has been a hotly debated topic, even though scientists have tried to settle the question over many years and using a wide range of scientific techniques.

“We have finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon; it’s time we knew its age and now we do,” said Mélanie Barboni, the study’s lead author and a research geochemist in UCLA’s Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences.

The moon was formed by a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a “planetary embryo” called Theia, a UCLA-led team of geochemists and colleagues reported in 2016.

The newest research would mean that the moon formed “only” about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system — an important point because it would provide critical information for astronomers and planetary scientists who seek to understand the early evolution of the Earth and our solar system.

That has been a difficult task, Barboni said, because “whatever was there before the giant impact has been erased.” While scientists cannot know what occurred before the collision with Theia, these findings are important because they will help scientists continue to piece together major events that followed it.

It’s usually difficult to determine the age of moon rocks because most of them contain a patchwork of fragments of multiple other rocks. But Barboni was able to analyze eight zircons in pristine condition. Specifically, she examined how the uranium they contained had decayed to lead (in a lab at Princeton University) and how the lutetium they contained had decayed to an element called hafnium (using a mass spectrometer at UCLA). The researchers analyzed those elements together to determine the moon’s age.

“Zircons are nature’s best clocks,” said Kevin McKeegan, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry, and a co-author of the study. “They are the best mineral in preserving geological history and revealing where they originated.”

The Earth’s collision with Theia created a liquefied moon, which then solidified. Scientists believe most of the moon’s surface was covered with magma right after its formation. The uranium–lead measurements reveal when the zircons first appeared in the moon’s initial magma ocean, which later cooled down and formed the moon’s mantle and crust; the lutetium–hafnium measurements reveal when its magma formed, which happened earlier.

“Mélanie was very clever in figuring out the moon’s real age dates back to its pre-history before it solidified, not to its solidification,” said Edward Young, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry and a co-author of the study.

Previous studies concluded the moon’s age based on moon rocks that had been contaminated by multiple collisions. McKeegan said those rocks indicated the date of some other events, “but not the age of the moon.”

The UCLA researchers are continuing to study zircons brought back by the Apollo astronauts to study the early history of the moon.

Co-authors of the Science Advances study are Patrick Boehnke, a former UCLA graduate student who is now a University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar; Christopher Keller, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral scholar; Issaku Kohl, a UCLA research geochemist; and Blair Schoene, associate professor of geosciences at Princeton University.

The research was funded by NASA, and Barboni received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Publication: Melanie Barboni, et al., “Early formation of the Moon 4.51 billion years ago,” Science Advances 11 Jan 2017: Vol. 3, no. 1, e1602365; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602365</s>The moon is much older than we thought, scientists have found.

Our closest neighbour is 4.51 billion years old, scientists have established.

The new estimate comes from rocks brought back by Apollo 14 scientists in 1971. And it means that we were as much as 150 million years out in our guess of how old it was.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

Shape Created with Sketch. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space 1/30 Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa 2/30 Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa 3/30 A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA 4/30 Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago 5/30 The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa 6/30 Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa 7/30 Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead — sharing pictures of black holes Nasa 8/30 NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa 9/30 Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa 10/30 Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later — having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa 11/30 Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 12/30 Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa 13/30 Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa 14/30 Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa 15/30 Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa 16/30 Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa 17/30 Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa 18/30 Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa 19/30 Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station 20/30 Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts 21/30 A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity 22/30 Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA 23/30 Pluto image Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto 24/30 Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta 25/30 Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA 26/30 An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 27/30 Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called “draa” 28/30 Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) 29/30 Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere 30/30 Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region 1/30 Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa 2/30 Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa 3/30 A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA 4/30 Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago 5/30 The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa 6/30 Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa 7/30 Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead — sharing pictures of black holes Nasa 8/30 NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa 9/30 Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa 10/30 Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later — having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa 11/30 Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 12/30 Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa 13/30 Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa 14/30 Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa 15/30 Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa 16/30 Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa 17/30 Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa 18/30 Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa 19/30 Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station 20/30 Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts 21/30 A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity 22/30 Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA 23/30 Pluto image Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto 24/30 Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta 25/30 Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA 26/30 An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 27/30 Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called “draa” 28/30 Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) 29/30 Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere 30/30 Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

The moon was formed within just 60 million years of the birth of the solar system, according to the new research. Previously, scientists had thought that it came about around 100 million to 200 million years after our solar system did.

The study was done by uranium-lead dating on small fragments of the mineral zircon that were taken from the samples. Those pieces of zircon were no bigger than a grain of sand, but they record their own history.

Apollo 11's Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected 92 pounds of rocks and used tubes to dig up soil while exploring the moon's Fra Mauro highlands in February 1971. They conducted two spacewalks, spending nine hours altogether out on the lunar surface.

The research could help us learn more about not only the moon, but also our solar system and even our own Earth, according to the lead author Melanie Barboni, of UCLA.

Ms Barboni said she is studying more zircons from Apollo 14 samples, but does not expect the findings to change her estimate of 4.51 billion years for the moon's age – possibly extending it to 4.52 billion years at the most.

"It would be more a double-checking than anything else," she said of the research.

This week, scientists also proposed a new theory of where the moon actually came from. It’s actually made up of a lot of tiny rocks that mushed together to form the satellite that we know today, scientists proposed.

It’s the age at which the moon became the solid mass we know today that Ms Barnobi and her team have worked out. "We finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon formation," she said, "regardless of how it formed."</s>The moon was born a mere 60 million years after the formation of the solar system, according to lunar samples brought back by Apollo 14 astronauts.

Epic crash vaporised baby Earth – and so the moon was born

Melanie Barboni from the University of California, Los Angeles and colleagues analysed the chemistry of eight zircon grains in rock and soil, picked up during the 1971 moon mission, and found they suggest the moon was mostly solidified around 4.51 billion years ago.

The moon's birthdate, which is tens of millions of years earlier than some other estimates, was published in Science Advances.



With the odd exception, planetary scientists think the moon was produced when the early Earth collided with another protoplanet, dubbed Theia, in the first couple of hundred million years of the solar system.

The giant plume of material blasted off by the impact settled into a hot disc around Earth, which eventually clumped together to become the moon.

Back then, the moon (and Earth) were both hot balls of melted rock. But nailing down exactly when the moon solidified from the so-called lunar magma ocean has been tricky.

One way has been to date the products of the lunar magma ocean such as crystals that took shape as the hot rock cooled and hardened. 



Was the Moon born in a head-on collision?

Lunar zircons are thought to form in the lunar magma ocean's potassium, rare-Earth elements and phosphorus (KREEP) reservoir. And because this reservoir formed towards the end of the magma ocean's hardening, they provide handy objects to determine when solidification took place.

Using a technique called isotope dilution thermal ionisation mass spectrometry – an incredibly sensitive technique that can accurately measure minute amounts of elements such as lead and uranium – Barboni and her crew found the zircon fragments crystallised between 50 and 60 million years after the birth of the solar system.

"Our data unambiguously show that the moon was [...] mostly solidified by 4.51 [billion years ago]," they write, with an uncertainty of around 10 million years.</s>That's the newest estimate, thanks to rocks and soil collected by the Apollo 14 moonwalkers in 1971.

A research team reported Wednesday that the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system. Previous estimates ranged within 100 million years, all the way out to 200 million years after the solar system's creation, not quite 4.6 billion years ago.

The scientists conducted uranium-lead dating on fragments of the mineral zircon extracted from Apollo 14 lunar samples. The pieces of zircon were minuscule—no bigger than a grain of sand.

"Size doesn't matter, they record amazing information nonetheless!" lead author Melanie Barboni of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an email.

She noted that the moon holds "so much magic ... the key to understand how our beautiful Earth formed and evolved."

The moon was created from debris knocked off from Earth, which itself is thought to be roughly 4.54 billion years old.

Some of the eight zircon samples were used in a previous study, also conducted at UCLA, that utilized more limited techniques. Barboni said she is studying more zircons from Apollo 14 samples, but doesn't expect it to change her estimate of 4.51 billion years for the moon's age, possibly 4.52 billion years at the most.

"It would be more a double-checking than anything else," she explained. She and her colleagues—whose work appeared Wednesday in the journal Science Advances—are eager to learn more about the moon's history and, in turn, the evolution of early Earth and the entire solar system.

Apollo 14's Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected 92 pounds of rocks and used tubes to dig up soil while exploring the moon's Fra Mauro highlands in February 1971. They conducted two spacewalks, spending nine hours altogether out on the lunar surface.

It's the second major moon study this week.

On Monday, Israeli scientists suggested our Earth's constant companion may actually be a melting pot of many mini-moons. Rather than one giant impact that shaved off a chunk of Earth and formed the moon, a series of smaller collisions may have created multiple moonlets that eventually merged into one, according to the researchers.

Barboni said regardless of how the moon came to be—one big strike at Earth, many smaller ones or even none at all—"you still end up at the end solidifying the moon as we know it today."

The giant impact theory holds that the resulting energy formed a lunar lava ocean that later became solid. It's this solidification age that Barboni and her team have now ascertained.

"We finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon formation," she said, "regardless of how it formed."

More information: Early formation of the Moon 4.51 billion years ago Science Advances 11 Jan 2017: Vol. 3, no. 1, e1602365, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602365 , http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1602365</s>Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. conducts an experiment near a crater during the 1971 moon mission. On Wednesday, a California-led research team reported that the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system. Previous estimates ranged within 100 million years. [NASA]

CAPE CANAVERAL — It turns out the moon is older than many scientists suspected: a ripe 4.51 billion years old.

That's the newest estimate, thanks to rocks and soil collected by the Apollo 14 moonwalkers in 1971.

A research team reported Wednesday that the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system. Previous estimates ranged within 100 million years, all the way out to 200 million years after the solar system's creation, not quite 4.6 billion years ago.

The scientists conducted uranium-lead dating on fragments of the mineral zircon extracted from Apollo 14 lunar samples. The pieces of zircon were minuscule — no bigger than a grain of sand.

"Size doesn't matter, they record amazing information nonetheless!" lead author Melanie Barboni of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an email.

She noted that the moon holds "so much magic ... the key to understand how our beautiful Earth formed and evolved."

Some of the eight zircon samples were used in a previous study, also conducted at UCLA. Barboni said she is studying more zircons from Apollo 14 samples, but doesn't expect it to change her estimate of 4.51 billion years for the moon's age, possibly 4.52 billion years at the most.

"It would be more a double-checking than anything else," she explained. She and her colleagues — whose work appeared Wednesday in the journal Science Advances — are eager to learn more about the moon's history and, in turn, the evolution of early Earth and the entire solar system.

Apollo 11's Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected 92 pounds of rocks and used tubes to dig up soil while exploring the moon's Fra Mauro highlands in February 1971. They conducted two spacewalks, spending nine hours altogether out on the lunar surface.

It's the second major moon study this week.

On Monday, Israeli scientists suggested our Earth's constant companion may actually be a melting pot of many mini-moons. Rather than one giant impact that shaved off a chunk of Earth and formed the moon, a series of smaller collisions may have created multiple moonlets that eventually merged into one, according to the researchers.

Barboni said regardless of how the moon came to be — one big strike at Earth, many smaller ones or even none at all — "you still end up at the end solidifying the moon as we know it today."

The giant impact theory holds that the resulting energy formed a lunar lava ocean that later became solid. It's this solidification age that Barboni and her team have now ascertained.

"We finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon formation," she said, "regardless of how it formed."</s>The is at least 4.51 billion years old - up to 140 million years older than previously thought, according to a new study of minerals called zircons brought back from the lunar body to the by the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

The Moon's age has been a hotly debated topic, even though scientists have tried to settle the question over many years and using a wide range of scientific techniques.

"We have finally pinned down a minimum age for the Moon; it is time we knew its age and now we do," said Melanie Barboni, research geochemist at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the US.

The was formed by a violent, head-on between the early and a "planetary embryo" called Theia.

The new study would mean that formed "only" about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system, providing critical information for astronomers and planetary scientists who seek to understand the early evolution of the and our solar system, researchers said.

That has been a difficult task, Barboni said, because "whatever was there before the giant impact has been erased."

While scientists cannot know what occurred before the with Theia, these findings are important because they will help scientists continue to piece together major events that followed it.

It is usually difficult to determine the age of rocks because most of them contain a patchwork of fragments of multiple other rocks. However, Barboni was able to analyse eight zircons in pristine condition.

She examined how the uranium they contained had decayed to lead and how the lutetium they contained had decayed to an element called hafnium.

The researchers analysed those elements together to determine the Moon's age.

"Zircons are nature's best clocks. They are the best mineral in preserving geological history and revealing where they originated," said Kevin McKeegan, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry.

The Earth's with created a liquefied Moon, which then solidified. Scientists believe most of the Moon's surface was covered with magma right after its formation.

The uranium-lead measurements reveal when the zircons first appeared in the Moon's initial magma ocean, which later cooled down and formed the Moon's mantle and crust; the lutetium-hafnium measurements reveal when its magma formed, which happened earlier.

Previous studies concluded the Moon's age based on rocks that had been contaminated by multiple collisions. McKeegan said those rocks indicated the date of some other events, "but not the age of the Moon."

The study was published in the journal Science Advances.</s>How old is the Earth’s moon? Scientists are revisiting the question previously considered settled.

After reanalyzing rocks and soil collected by Apollo 14 mission in 1971, researchers suggest that the moon is actually a lot older than originally estimated.

For years, researchers suspected that the moon was formed within 100 million to 200 million years after the creation of solar system. But new analysis suggests that the event likely took place within 60 years of solar system’s birth. This means our closest neighbor was born 4.51 billion years ago instead of 4.6 billion years.

“We have finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon; it’s time we knew its age and now we do.” Mélanie Barboni, the study lead author and a research geochemist in University of California, Los Angeles said.

The new research was focused on the fragments of mineral zircon that were extracted from the Apollo 14 lunar samples. By analyzing the changes in zircon’s conditions over time, researchers were able to figure out the roughly age of the moon.

“Zircons are nature’s best clocks,” said co-author professor Kevin McKeegan from UCLA. “They are the best mineral in preserving geological history and revealing where the originated.”

The most widely accepted theory suggests that moon was formed by a catastrophe collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized forming planet called Theia. The moon was covered with magma right after its formation, which later cooled down and formed solid crust and mantle of the moon.

Previous researches were mostly based on moon’s rock that went on to lose their pristine state due to multiple impacts. So, they ended up knowing the date of some event, not the age of the moon. New research, however, also takes into account the moon’s soil and the period before the solidification.

The latest findings are important because they can help researches better understand the origin of Earth and our solar system and how the Earth was like in its early evolutionary history.

“Establishing the age of the moon is critical to understanding our solar system evolution and formation of rocky planets, including Earth. However, despite its importance, the age of the moon has never been accurately determined.” Authors wrote in the study.

“Our data indicate differentiation of the lunar crust by 4.51 billion years, indicating the formation of the moon within the first 60 million years after the birth of solar system.”</s>For decades, scientists have been of the belief that the Moon, Earth’s only natural satellite, was four and a half billion years old. According to this theory, the Moon was created from a fiery cataclysm produced by a collision between the Earth with a Mars-sized object (named Theia) roughly 100 million years after the formation of primordial Earth.

But according to a new study by researchers from UCLA (who re-examined some of the Apollo Moon Rocks), these estimates may have been off by about 40 to 140 million years. Far from simply adjusting our notions of the Moon’s proper age, these findings are also critical to our understanding of the Solar System and the formation and evolution of its rocky planets.

This study, titled “Early formation of the Moon 4.51 billion years ago“, was published recently in the journal Science Advances. Led by Melanie Barboni – a professor from the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA – the research team conducted uranium-lead dating on fragments of the Moon rocks that were brought back by the Apollo 14 astronauts.

These fragments were of a compound known as zircon, a type of silicate mineral that contains trace amounts of radioactive elements (like uranium, thorium, and lutetium). As Kevin McKeegan, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry and a co-author of the study, explained, “Zircons are nature’s best clocks. They are the best mineral in preserving geological history and revealing where they originated.”

By examining the radioactive decay of these elements, and correcting for cosmic ray exposure, the research team was able to get highly precise estimates of the zircon fragments ages. Using one of UCLA’s mass spectrometers, they were able to measure the rate at which the deposits of uranium in the zircon turned into lead, and the deposits of lutetium turned into hafnium.

In the end, their data indicated that the Moon formed about 4.51 billion years ago, which places its birth within the first 60 million years of the Solar System or so. Previously, dating Moon rocks proved difficult, mainly because most of them contained fragments of many different kinds of rocks, and these samples were determined to be tainted by the effects of multiple impacts.

However, Barboni and her team were able to examine eight zircons that were in good condition. More importantly, these silicate deposits are believed to have formed shortly after the collision between Earth and Theia, when the Moon was still an unsolidified mass covered in oceans of magma. As these oceans gradually cooled, the Moon’s body became differentiated between its crust, mantle and core.

Because zircon minerals were formed during the initial magma ocean, uranium-lead dating reaches all the way back to a time before the Moon became a solidified mass. As Edward Young, a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry and a co-author of the study, put it, “Mélanie was very clever in figuring out the Moon’s real age dates back to its pre-history before it solidified, not to its solidification.”

These findings have not only determined the age of the Moon with a high degree of accuracy (and for the first time), it also has implications for our understanding of when and how rocky planes formed within the Solar System. By placing accurate dates on when certain bodies formed, we are able to understand the context in which they formed, which also helps to determine what mechanisms were involved.

And this was just the first revelation produced by the research team, which hopes to continue studying the zircon fragments to see what they can learn about the Moon’s early history.

By Matt Williams - 

 Matt Williams is the Curator of the Guide to Space for Universe Today, a regular contributor to HeroX, a science fiction author, and a Taekwon-Do instructor. He lives with his family on Vancouver Island in beautiful BC.

age of the moon, Apollo 14, apollo missions, Apollo Moon Rocks, Featured, the moon</s>It turns out the moon is older than many scientists suspected: a ripe 4.51 billion years old.

That's the newest estimate, thanks to rocks and soil collected by the Apollo 14 moonwalkers in 1971.

A research team reported Wednesday that the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system. Previous estimates ranged within 100 million years, all the way out to 200 million years after the solar system's creation, not quite 4.6 billion years ago.

The scientists conducted uranium-lead dating on fragments of the mineral zircon extracted from Apollo 14 lunar samples. The pieces of zircon were minuscule — no bigger than a grain of sand.

"Size doesn't matter, they record amazing information nonetheless!" lead author Melanie Barboni of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an email.

She noted that the moon holds "so much magic ... the key to understand how our beautiful Earth formed and evolved."

The moon was created from debris knocked off from Earth, which itself is thought to be roughly 4.54 billion years old.

Some of the eight zircon samples were used in a previous study, also conducted at UCLA, that utilized more limited techniques. Barboni said she is studying more zircons from Apollo 14 samples, but doesn't expect it to change her estimate of 4.51 billion years for the moon's age, possibly 4.52 billion years at the most.

"It would be more a double-checking than anything else," she explained. She and her colleagues — whose work appeared Wednesday in the journal Science Advances — are eager to learn more about the moon's history and, in turn, the evolution of early Earth and the entire solar system.

Apollo 14's Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected 92 pounds of rocks and used tubes to dig up soil while exploring the moon's Fra Mauro highlands in February 1971. They conducted two spacewalks, spending nine hours altogether out on the lunar surface.</s>Moon likely formed more than 4 billion years ago, scientists say

The Moon is much older than previously thought and likely formed more than four billion years ago, scientists in the US have found.

Their discovery was a result of analysis of rocks and soil collected by the Apollo 14 moonwalkers in 1971.

The estimate, from a research team from the University of California in Los Angeles, found the moon formed within 60 million years of the birth of the solar system.

Previous estimates ranged from within 100 million to 200 million years after the solar system's creation, less than half the latest estimate.

The scientists conducted uranium-lead dating on fragments of the mineral zircon extracted from Apollo 14 lunar samples.

The pieces of zircon were minuscule, no bigger than a grain of sand.

Some of the eight zircon samples were used in a previous study, also conducted at UCLA.

Ms Barboni said she was studying more zircons from Apollo 14 samples, but did not expect them to change her estimate of the moon's age, from 4.51 billion to 4.52 billion years, at most.

"It would be more a double-checking than anything else," she said.

The work of Ms Barboni and her colleagues appeared in the journal Science Advances.

She said the team was eager to learn more about the moon's history and, in turn, the evolution of early Earth and the entire solar system.

In February 1971, Apollo 11's Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell collected 41 kilograms of rocks, and used tubes to dig up soil while exploring the moon's Fra Mauro highlands.

They conducted two spacewalks, spending nine hours altogether out on the lunar surface.

Scientists still to discover how Moon formed

The UCLA report is the second major moon study this week.

Earlier, Israeli scientists suggested the Earth's constant companion may actually be a melting pot of many mini-moons.

The researchers proposed that rather than one giant impact that shaved off a chunk of Earth and formed the moon, a series of smaller collisions may have created multiple moonlets that eventually merged into one.

Ms Barboni said regardless of how the moon came into being, "you still end up at the end solidifying the moon as we know it today".

The giant impact theory holds that the resulting energy formed a lunar lava ocean that later became solid.

It is the date of this solidification age that Ms Barboni and her team believe they have established.

"We finally pinned down a minimum age for the moon formation, regardless of how it formed," she said.
A UCLA research team, analyzing lunar minerals brought back during the Apollo program, reports that the moon is at least 4.51 billion years old, up to 150 million years older than previous estimates.