A Song of Fire...
Latin for "seas," these dark volcanic regions cover the nearside of the Moon.
What are maria?
Located near the Moon's poles, these areas never receive direct sunlight.
What are permanently shadowed regions (PSRs)?
These types of faults, also known as graben, may have formed as the crust stretched when it was loaded by dense basaltic lavas.
What are normal faults?
This high-speed rocky material spreads out in a "curtain" away from an impact.
What is ejecta?
This NASA program will send the first woman to the Moon... or at least that's the plan.
What is Artemis?
This hypothesis predicts that the entire Moon was originally molten when it formed.
What is the lunar magma ocean (LMO)?
This stream of charged particles is responsible for the implantation of molecular water on the lunar surface.
What is the solar wind?
Small contractional features on the Moon are known as "lobate" these.
What are scarps?
This is the largest impact basin on the Moon.
What is South Pole-Aitken (SPA)?
This private space company is developing a human moon lander from its Starship rocket.
What is SpaceX?
The lunar highlands are made primarily of this type of rock.
What is anorthosite?
The Apollo missions brought back samples of this material that was later confirmed to contain lunar water.
What are volcanic glasses (or pyroclastic deposits)?
A “blind” version of this type of fault has not propagated to the surface.
What is a thrust fault?
Non-circular impact craters form on the Moon when these types of very low-angle impacts occur.
What is oblique?
This NASA program is sending commercially built missions to the Moon on a budget.
What is Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)?
The crust of Oceanus Procellarum is unusually warm due to the presence of this group of radiogenic elements.
What is KREEP?
Lunar "water" may actually refer to this compound with the chemical formula OH.
What is hydroxyl?
Cooling lava on the surface of the Moon often forms these diagnostic tectonic features.
What are wrinkle ridges?
The Orientale impact is a spectacular example of this type of large crater.
What is a multi-ringed basin?
Lunar water may one day be mined for this purpose, a four-letter word that could be interpreted as poor environmental stewardship.
What is ISRU (in situ resource utilization)?
One of the few volcanic regions on the lunar farside was named for this capital city.
What is Moscow (Mare Moscoviense)?
This metallic material may be responsible for trapping molecular water in lunar regolith.
What is nanophase iron?
These types of craters may have been cracked and buckled by the emplacement of magma chambers at depth.
What is a floor-fractured crater?
This is the first, very brief stage in an impact cratering event.
What is contact and compression?
She will be the first woman to travel to the Moon on the Artemis II mission.
Who is Christina Koch?