The Committee to Nuke Elysium

American geophysicists believe the moon’s Procellarum region, a dark patch more than half the size of Australia, resulted from a magma plume rather than a massive asteroid strike, as previously thought. The finding “deals a big blow to the asteroid theory”, said Brown University, which contributed to the study. Procellarum is the only lunar “sea” big enough to be called an ocean and is one of a number of dark spots on the moon’s surface that, when seen from Earth, resemble a face. Unlike other dark areas such as the Sea of Rains and Sea of Seren­ity, Procellarum is not surrounded by signs of impact, such as mountains and scars. Scientists have long debated whether Procel­larum is so old that the impact signs have been eroded, or was formed by a different process. Now researchers say they have settled the argument, using data from twin NASA spacecraft that orbited the moon in 2012 and mapped its gravity. The team ­created a high-resolu­tion map showing Procellarum’s border composed of sharp angles that could not have been created by an asteroid. The researchers believe the angular outline was produced by giant tension cracks in the crust as it cooled around magma from deep inside the moon. Maria Zuber, co-author of a paper in the journal Nature, said tthe cracks had formed a “plumbing system” which had allowe­d magma to ­meander to the surface and created the dark spots we see.