Center for Lunar Science and Exploration, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77058, USA.
Impacts and Astromaterials Research Centre, Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Nat Commun. 2016 Oct 20;7:13161. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13161.
The Schrödinger basin on the lunar farside is ∼320 km in diameter and the best-preserved peak-ring basin of its size in the Earth-Moon system. Here we present spectral and photogeologic analyses of data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on the LRO spacecraft, which indicates the peak ring is composed of anorthositic, noritic and troctolitic lithologies that were juxtaposed by several cross-cutting faults during peak-ring formation. Hydrocode simulations indicate the lithologies were uplifted from depths up to 30 km, representing the crust of the lunar farside. Through combining geological and remote-sensing observations with numerical modelling, we show that a Displaced Structural Uplift model is best for peak rings, including that in the K-T Chicxulub impact crater on Earth. These results may help guide sample selection in lunar sample return missions that are being studied for the multi-agency International Space Exploration Coordination Group.
月球远侧的薛定谔盆地直径约为 320 公里，是地球-月球系统中保存最完好的同尺寸峰环盆地。在这里，我们展示了来自 Chandrayaan-1 航天器上的月球矿物绘图仪（Moon Mineralogy Mapper）仪器和 LRO 航天器上的月球勘测轨道飞行器相机（LROC）的数据的光谱和地质摄影分析，这些数据表明，峰环由斜长岩、紫苏辉长岩和橄长辉长岩组成，在峰环形成过程中，这些岩石被几条横切断层拼接在一起。流体动力学模拟表明，这些岩石是从最深达 30 公里的深处抬升上来的，代表了月球远侧的地壳。通过将地质和遥感观测与数值模拟相结合，我们表明，对于峰环，包括地球上的 K-T 希克苏鲁伯撞击坑，位移构造抬升模型是最佳的。这些结果可能有助于指导正在为多机构国际太空探索协调小组研究的月球样本返回任务中的样本选择。
