Word: wasserburg
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1970
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...earthly specimen-or any of the other lunar material brought back by Apollo 12. It contained 20 times as much radioactive uranium, thorium and potassium as comparable amounts of other moon material and was the oldest lunar specimen yet obtained. Radioactive dating tests made by Caltech Geologist Gerald Wasserburg indicated that the rock was formed 4.6 billion years ago-around the time that the moon and the planets arc believed to have been created. Scientists hope that further examination of the rock will provide new insight into the formation of the solar system...
...moon program can be kept on schedule. Indeed, the space agency got some rare encouragement to press ahead with Apollo from an often critical scientific community. Reporting puzzling age differences in lunar dust gathered at the Ocean of Storms and at the Sea of Tranquillity, Caltech Geologist Gerald Wasserburg made a strong plea at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union for continued manned lunar exploration. "The moon," he told the Washington conference, "will surely prove to be the cornerstone of our understanding of planetary evolution...
...years younger. How could there be such a huge age gap between material picked up only a few feet apart? "This is a major puzzle," says Rice University Geologist Dieter Heymann. One small rock fragment, though, was considerably older than the others: 4.44 billion years. Caltech Geologist G. J. Wasserburg, who calculated its age, believes that still older rocks dating back to the very creation of the moon will probably be found in the unexplored lunar highlands...
...Examination of the lunar rocks also established that catastrophic events rocked the moon about a billion years after its creation. "There were definitely lava flows 3.65 billion years ago," says Wasserburg. Scientists are still uncertain whether the lava rose from a hot lunar interior or was created by heat from the impact of huge meteorites. If the melting was indeed caused by meteors, a similar process might have occurred on the nearby earth. This could explain why scientists have been unable to find any terrestrial rocks older than 3.6 billion years-although the earth, too, is believed...