Taking the Temperature of the Moon to See What’s Inside

The Moon is our nearest neighbor, but surprisingly little is known about its interior, even the temperature within its body. Now, by simulating lunar conditions in a laboratory here on Earth, a geoscientist from the University of Rhode Island (URI) has accomplished that feat.

The surface temperature of the Moon, measured by the astronauts of Apollo, peaks near -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit), a temperature similar to that of a January day in New England. The region between the core and mantle of the Moon was found to have a temperature between 1,300 and 1,470 degrees Celsius (2,370–2,675 Fahrenheit), which is warmer than researchers predicted.

“In order to understand the interior structure of the Moon today, we needed to nail down the thermal state better. Now we have the two anchor points — the core-mantle boundary and the surface temperature measured by Apollo — and that will help us create a temperature profile through the Moon. We need that temperature profile to determine the internal state, structure and composition of the Moon,” said Ananya Mallik of URI.

Harrison Schmitt, a geologist, is the only scientist (so far) to have walked on the surface of the Moon. Here, Schmitt is shown on the lunar surface during the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. Image credit: NASA

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