(ORDO NEWS) — Temperatures on the Moon are extreme, ranging from boiling to freezing cold, depending on where the Sun is. The Moon does not have a significant atmosphere, so it cannot insulate the surface from sudden changes in temperature.
The moon rotates on its axis in about 27 days. A lunar day on one side of the moon lasts about 13 and a half Earth days, and then a lunar night lasts 13 and a half Earth days.
When sunlight hits the moon’s surface, the temperature can rise to 127 degrees Celsius. When the sun goes down, the temperature can drop to minus 173 C. Temperatures vary across the entire surface of the moon as there is day and night on both the near and far sides.
The Moon has an axial tilt of about 1.54 degrees – much less than Earth’s 23.44 degrees. This means that the Moon does not have seasons like Earth’s. However, due to the tilt, there are places at the lunar poles that never see daylight.
The Diviner instrument on NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measured the temperature on the Moon and obtained the following data: minus 238 C in the craters at the south pole and minus 247 C in the crater at the north pole.
“These ultra-low temperatures, to our knowledge, are the lowest ever measured anywhere in the solar system, including the surface of Pluto,” said David Page in 2009, Diviner principal investigator and professor of planetary science at Los Angeles. Since then, the NASA New Horizons mission has established Pluto’s temperature range from minus 240 to minus 217 C.
Scientists suspected that water ice could exist in craters that are in constant shadow. In 2010, NASA radar aboard India‘s Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft detected water ice in more than 40 small craters on the moon’s north pole. They suggested that more than 590 million tons of water ice hid at the bottom of these craters.
“By analyzing the data, our science team has found water ice, a discovery that will give future missions a new target for further study and use,” said Jason Krusan, executive director of the Mini-RF program for NASA’s Space Operations Washington DC mission.
Core Temperature The
Moon has an iron-rich core with a radius of about 330 km. The temperature at the Moon’s heart is likely between 1327 and 1427 C. The core heats the inner layer of the molten mantle, but it is not hot enough to warm the Moon’s surface. Since the lunar core is smaller than the Earth’s, the internal temperatures of the Moon do not rise as high as on Earth.
“It’s not as hot as Earth’s because the moon is smaller – hence its internal pressure is also lower,” NASA planetary scientist Rene Webber said during a NASA-hosted online chat. “It’s temperature is probably cooler than the temperature at the center of the Earth.”
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