Scientists say the Moon has entered a new era

Nature Geoscience: The Moon has entered a new era

For thousands of years, the Moon has inspired humans as a bright beacon in Earth’s night sky, more than 321,868 kilometers away, but remained out of reach. That all changed on September 13, 1959, when the former Soviet Union’s unmanned spacecraft Luna 2 landed on the lunar surface.

According to NASA, the Luna 2 probe created a crater when it landed on the Moon between the lunar regions Mare Monsimos and Mare Serenitatis.

That turning point, stirring up lunar dust, marked the beginning of humanity’s efforts to explore the Moon, and some scientists now suggest it was also the beginning of a new geological epoch—or time period in history—called the “Lunar Anthropocene,” the journal says. Nature Geoscience.

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“The idea is very similar to the discussion of the Anthropocene on Earth—a study of how much humans have impacted our planet,” said lead author Justin Holcomb, a research scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey.

“On the Moon, the lunar Anthropocene has already begun, but we want to prevent widespread damage or delay recognition until we can measure significant human-induced lunar haloing, which would be too late,” Serenitatis said.

The idea of ​​a lunar Anthropocene emerged at a time when civilian space agencies and commercial organizations were showing renewed interest in landing on the moon.

The authors of the paper argue that the lunar environment, already shaped by humans at the beginning of the lunar Anthropocene, will change more radically as exploration expands.

The moon, however, is littered with traces of exploration.

Since the landing of Luna 2, more than a hundred spacecraft have crashed and made soft landings on the Moon. Landing on the lunar surface is incredibly difficult, as evidenced by the numerous disasters that have left their mark and created new craters.