Scientific Research What is our task?

Geology and age of Apollo 11 After starting Moon 101 We freaked out….

Then we got started… Apollo 11 Info When? ‐‐ Launched July 16th 1969 ‐‐Landed July 20th 1969

Where? ‐‐ 19’ N 169’ W

Who? ‐‐Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins

What? ‐‐Moon rocks collected = 21.7 kilograms

(Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin, Michael Collins) Why? ‐‐ To perform a manned lunar landing and a successful return. What you are really wanting is for us to ROLL BACK TIME and give a newscast from 3.9 billion years ago

Giving a step by step analysis of what happened for the next 3.9 billion years… It started at the Great Cataclysm…. Definition: Intense bombardment of the inner planets and the Moon by planetesimals during a narrow interval between 3.92 and 3.85 billion years ago

Leaving Maria as a bunch of Basaltic material (which is igneous rock) that eventually cooled to form the Maria’s that we know today. When we left it was crazy…

The after effects are what we are observing now, when things cooled down. Lunar Geologic Time

•Age dating on the moon (lunar surface) is determined by direct radiometric dating, or AR‐AR isotope radioactive date (isochromometer)

•It can also be determined by the technique of crater counting. (Which Red Bank is doing!)

•Radiometric ages of Mare range from about 3.16 to 4.2 Ga.

•Most volcanic eruptions on the lunar surface occurred between about 3 to 3.5 Ga.

•The Apollo 11 landing site was in the sea of Tranquility. •The Sea of Tranquility consists of basalt.

•It is intermediate to young age groups of the upper Imbrian epoch. •Anorthosites are the oldest rocks on the moon (which form the highlands). Some age back to be 4.29 billion years old. •Breccia is a mixture of anorthosite (lunar highland), mare material, and its impactor material Mare Rock Materials Composite •Made of basalt •Make up 16% of the Moon’s surface •Basaltic plains on the moon •Made of volcanic eruptions Lunar basalt

Lunar breccia’s are found mostly in craters and is ejecta from craters. Lunar breccia

Lunar Anorthosite Anorthosites border the Apollo 11 landing site. They are composed mostly of plagioclase feldspar and are the oldest rocks on the moon at 4.29 billion years old. Crater impact lab (Class experiment!!)

Impact ejecta

Breccia

Impact melt Impact lab experiment

Materials we used: •Cocoa •Pink lemonade with a little water (to show partial melt) •Flour •Rocks •Measuring devices •Black paper to represent the Ejecta basalt of the Mares WHAT DID WE LEARN? Ejecta is the material thrown out of a body of a crater from an impact.

OUR MEASUREMENTS Brown ejecta rays‐ [4ft. 5in. –2 ft. 2in.] White ejecta rays‐ [10.5 in –1ft ½in.] Impact Crater’s diameter was 3 in.

WHY DO WE FOLLOW EJECTA?? Ejecta helps us age date craters from a distance. By following the ejecta of an impact crater, we can use the law of superposition to do relative dating on the moon. Apollo 11 Landing site from MoonZoo

1,379,112images from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) “In we go” Apollo 11 landing site

Longitude: 23.5 degrees East Latitude: 0.8 degrees North Apollo 11 Site Moltke Crater and Cats Paw and line of 23 degree line

Apollo 15 Flight Journal view looking south over the Apollo 11 landing area. This is a highlighted view from the North The swathe line is roughly placed The Moltke Crater Moltke Crater ‐It is a simple crater with a diameter of 4.3 miles (7 kilometers). ‐It has bright rays on one half and dark on the other. ‐This simple crater has a small bowl shaped interior with smooth walls and is a post‐mare event making it a relatively young crater. ‐Longitude: 23.2 degrees East ‐Latitude: 1 degrees South The Cat’s Paw Crater

Cat’s Paw Crater ‐Can be seen through amateur telescopes from Earth. ‐1.8 km in diameter ‐0.03 km in depth ‐Longitude: 23.5 degrees East ‐Latitude: 0.8 degrees North Crater Counting for Age Dating Trask Method for finding relative ages of craters due to their surface changes: size and sharpness of rim walls using pgs 134 and 135 of the Relative ages of the Geologic History of the Moon packet. “Craters play a dual role as individual strat. units and as time count” Using this method we took the MoonZoo data we received from the 23rd degree longitude swath, which is right above the Apollo 11 landing site pictures and started counting craters.

Knowing that Cat’s Paw was 1 km across and Moltke was 7 km across, all of our craters fell below 400 meters that we counted.

In the swath we counted in 33 slides over 3,114 craters ranging from size of 400 meters down to 25 meters. Most of these images were taken at a Sun angle of ‐88.10 degrees.

All the students participated in MoonZoo we did 491 slides as a class all over the Moon.

This swathe is 33 slides long taken from MoonZoo The relative date of our swathe was: We found craters in the Copernican time interval 4 and 5. The majority of our impact craters(1,973) were less than 100 meters at 66%. 29% of them fell between 100 and 200 meters the last 5% was between 200 and 400 meters. Apollo 11 Landing Site Resources

•http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11‐40‐5957HR.jpg •http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/369227main_aldrinLM_full.jpg •http://nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/FIGURES/traverses/as11travers.jpg •http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/images/approach_lg.gif •http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/m/C/1/apollo34.jpg •http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/apollolanding/ApolloLanding/slide_03. html •http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/apollolanding/ApolloLanding/slide_02. html •http://space.about.com/od/moon/ig/Moon‐Pictures‐Gallery/The‐Moon‐from‐Galileo‐ Perspe.htm From all of us at Red Bank High School: Thank you! We hope you enjoyed!