Lunar Rover Discovers Mysterious Objects On The Moon

New and strange discoveries are happening all the time in space. The newest discovery was made on the moon, by China's lunar rover, which is called Yutu-2.

By James Brizuela | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

moon

In an age where the Pentagon has finally admitted that there are UFOs, which have now been renamed to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, it might come as no shock that new and strange discoveries are happening all the time in space. This newest discovery was made by China’s lunar rover, which is called Yutu-2. The rover seemed to locate two spherical glass shapes on the moon. Although glass beads are not out of the norm on the moon’s surface, these ones have an odd texture and look about them, which has baffled scientists.

These spherical glass beads are common on the moon due to being created by the impact of objects like meteorites. When silicate material that exists on the surface is rapidly heated due to an impact, the heat causes the material to essentially form into a spherical object and land back on the surface. That is due to the extensive volcanic activity that took place on the moon many years ago. The volcanic material left behind easily turns into the glass spherules once it is struck with heat, which again, is caused by the striking of meteorites. Scientists want to examine these spherules due to their properties allowing the recording of the moon’s composition and impact history. However, the odd thing between normal spherules and the ones found this time around is the look. These new spherules seem to be translucent and semi-transparent with a vitreous luster.

Glass spheres on moon

Although most spherules in the area are of the same size, usually less than a millimeter in size, these new spherules have been measured at around 15-25 millimeters across. Although these glass orbs are clearly much larger, there have been instances of 40-millimeter glass orbs also found during the Apollo 16 mission. These are all speculated to be impact spherules. The different nature in the look of these spherules could tell scientists much more about impact history, as they have theorized the new spherules discovered could have been under the surface of the moon and were shook loose when a meteorite crashed. The team believes these oddly colored orbs were a case of volcanic glass called, “anorthosite.” This anorthosite material was heated again on impact, causing the translucent state of the spherules. According to the paper written about their findings, researchers concluded that, “Collectively, the peculiar morphology, geometry, and local context of the glass globules are consistent with being anorthositic impact glasses.”

We can imagine that the Yutu-2 mission was shocked when they saw the rover’s images and caught the sight of a glass orb reflecting on the surface of the moon. Maybe some other life forms had to leave in a hurry and forgot to take their marbles with them. All jokes aside, with finding such unique glass spheres, they can be collected and studied for scientists to determine the historical impact more thoroughly. It could certainly explain why the moon has that many craters and why they are the size they are. Those craters might have been the only thing saving the Earth from being destroyed by massive meteors. The dinosaurs might not have been the only creatures that got wiped out had the moon not been there to take all the damage.

Subscribe for Science News
Get More Real But Weird

Science News

Expect a confirmation email if you Subscribe.