'A single magma ocean' once covered the moon, data from India's Chandrayaan-3 mission suggests

Data from India's recent Chandrayaan-3 mission supports the idea that an ocean of molten rock once covered the moon. Scientists from the mission have published their new findings in the journal Nature.

On August 23 2023, a lander called Vikram successfully touched down on the lunar surface. Controllers then deployed a rover called Pragyan, which had been stowed on Vikram, to explore the landing site.

The location where Vikram touched down was further south than any other landing craft had previously been on the moon. It gave scientists an insight into geology of the moon that had not yet been sampled.

Pragyan's measurements found that the particular mix of chemical elements in the lunar soil (or regolith) surrounding the lander was relatively uniform. This regolith was primarily made up of a white rock type called ferroan anorthosite.

The scientists say the chemical composition of the lunar south pole regolith is intermediate between those of samples from two locations in the moon's equatorial region: those collected by astronauts on the US Apollo 16 flight in 1972, and those returned to Earth by the robotic Luna-20 mission, flown by the Soviet Union the same year.

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The broad similarity in the chemical compositions of all these samples, despite the fact they came from very distant geographical locations on the moon, supports the idea that a single magma ocean covered the moon early in its History.