The Moon Has a Mysterious "Lump" On Its Far Side, Say Scientists

...which might explain some of the mechanics as to why that side faces away from Earth on a regular basis, perhaps.

Yeah, maybe some, but the shape of the moon should approximate an equipotential surface, shaped by both the moon's gravity and the earth gravity tidal force, acquiring a slightly bird's egg shape with the large end toward the earth. The tidal force varies inversely with the cube of the distance, and when the moon was formed, it was in a liquid state and much closer to the earth, so it was soon gravitationally locked due to the aspherical shape.

"Scientists think the moon formed from debris blasted into space when a mysterious planet-size body slammed into the young Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The moon was born hot, and it came into existence quite close to our home planet. (The moon has been slowly spiraling away ever since.)

The newborn moon was thus primed to be sculpted by Earth's gravity, and that's exactly what happened, researchers say."

https://www.space.com/26684-moon-lemon-shape-tidal-forces.html

I guess there are two ways to look at it, gravitational forces of earth pull heavy mass toward earth, rotation around earth creates centrifugal force that draws heavy mass away from earth.

It looks like another buried pyramid like the large one in Bosnia. Probably there to tell aliens where we are.

Haven't you heard?

President Trump has declared, and I quote: "For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!"

There you have it.

The Moon is cheese and Mars is chocolate!

We need to go to practice our technology on the moon (which is part of GOING TO MARS). if there is an issue on the moon, we can get home or another ship to resupply. going to mars takes 150 to 250 days.. because this is where earth and mars are close to each other. if we need to go to mars and help, the trip is even longer. I'm sure you understand that.

My thought when I see this material that has high mass could be something very valuable like pt. or Au. Could this be why China has such interest in the dark side?

That lump, would be the cheese. Most likely cheddar.

I bet it's Brie under a crust.

Inappropriate Image: This post (or part of this post) was deleted because it included an inappropriate image that violates the Rules of Conduct.

It's an alien space ship. Haven't you seen Transformers?

If there is a substantial lump-mass located at some radius-distance from the center-of-mass of the moon, then shouldn't the moon exhibit a very slight wobble as a consequence?...

Measuring the wobble should then indicate the mass of the lump, at least to a nearest order-of-magnitude, even if the lump has nearly the same density as the net density of the entire moon (i.e.: lower density than the core, but more density than the net-mantle) ?...

There shouldn't be any wobble. From our perspective, the moon isn't rotating, the lump stays in the same place, and we wouldn't see any wobble. Even from a viewpoint off of the earth, you would not see the wobble because it would be synchronous with the moon's orbit.

The only way to detect density anomalies is with a pair of satellites which can detect the tidal force, the change in the gravity field, as they orbit the moon.

Since the moon shows it's illuminated side towards the earth for an entire moon-orbit duration, it's ''tidal force'' would constanly be directed towards the Earth, and not contribute to a wobble.

However, a solid sphere of uniform density, volume, and planetary radius would trace out a predictable elliptical orbit around the Earth, ignoring the few centimeters that it moves farther away each time. If measured closely enough, a mass-wise unbalanced sphere of the same overall dimensions would exhibit systematic recurring differences from the theoretical orbit of a uniformly balanced such sphere in the same orbit...

If two sattellites were put in appropriate orbits around the actual unbalanced moon, those two satellites would orbit synchronously with that unbalanced moon, and would not detect the relative variations from the theoretical orbit of a uniformly dense equivalent moon...

However, the recurring relative variations (i.e.: wobble) could be calculated, relative to the Earth-Moon-center-of-mass, but not just based on the satellites-moon-center-of-mass-system alone ...

Here we go again. The far side of the moon gets at least as much illumination as the close side.

The far side of the moon does receive a comparable amount of ambient star light as does the near side, but nowhere near as much as our sun's light, directly from ''Sol'', as does the near side...

It would be very surprising indeed if the moon was not roughly shaped like an oblate spheriod, as was the Earth, when I studied Land Surveying, some 50 years ago...

It is good to know that the entire moon has been magnetically ''mapped'' already, with the range of earth's variances found to be, roughly, from +50 gals to -50 gals, while the moon's range has similarly been mapped from about +250 gals down to -250 gals...

But, at which spot on the far side is the mass in question to be located (i.e.: the largest red spot in the upper right hand corner, or the darkest blue spot closer to the bottom right center) ?...

The top and bottom of the ''Mercator Projectiion'' both stop at about 85-ish degrees.

Should not 90 degrees North, or South, be a single point representing the respective North, or South, Pole?...

Going back to the original post reference:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/scientists-have-discovered-a-mysterious-lump-on-the-moons-far-side-and-its-5-times-bigger-than-hawaiis-big-island/ar-AACGCWs?ocid=ientp

The heavy spot is not directly on the far side, but closer to the south pole on the far side, where we can't see it.

"The feature lurks dozens of miles beneath a 1,550-mile-wide impact crater called the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which we can't see from Earth. Ideas for what the mysterious lump may be include the splattered core of a giant metallic asteroid or an ocean of red-hot magma that slowly froze in place."

The oldest and largest verified impact basin, 2100 km-wide South Pole-Aitken, now believed by many to be oblong though the

location of its central transitory morphological center remains elusive. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter laser altimetry (LOLA) [NASA/GSFC].

Topographic map of the South Pole–Aitken basin based on Kaguya data. Red represents high elevation, purple represents low elevation. The purple and grey elliptical rings trace the inner and outer walls of the basin. (The black ring is an old artifact of the image.)
Coordinates	53°S 169°WCoordinates: 53°S 169°W
Diameter	About 2,500 km (1,600 mi)
Depth	About 13 km (8.1 mi)
Eponym	Lunar south pole Aitken (crater)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole%E2%80%93Aitken_basin

For taking, and making, the colorized photograghs enclosed herein, a sincere thanks is given to NASA, and to Wikipedia, only ...

I suspect you meant "visible side" in the first paragraph.

If the moon were a perfect sphere of uniform density the physical center would be the center of mass. If we add a heavy mass to the far side, the center of mass would be farther from the earth than the physical center. The moon's period would be determined by the distance to the center of mass, so under these ideal conditions, you might detect the presence of the mass.

Alas, the moon is far from a perfect sphere, so I suspect detecting the difference between the physical center and mass center would not be too useful. It would be an average of all the imperfections.

The gravity map of the moon has been mapped by NASA by a pair of satellites, GRAIL ebb and flow.

"This image shows the variations in the lunar gravity field as measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) during the primary mapping mission from March to May 2012. Very precise microwave measurements between two spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, were used to map gravity with high precision and high spatial resolution. The field shown resolves blocks on the surface of about 12 miles (20 kilometers) and measurements are three to five orders of magnitude improved over previous data. Red corresponds to mass excesses and blue corresponds to mass deficiencies. The map shows more small-scale detail on the far side of the moon compared to the nearside because the far side has many more small craters."

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/multimedia/zuber4.html

GRAIL's Gravity Field of the Moon

This map shows the gravity field of the moon as measured by NASA's GRAIL mission. The viewing perspective, known as a Mercator projection, shows the far side of the moon in the center and the nearside (as viewed from Earth) at either side.
Units are milliGalileos where 1 Galileo is 1 centimeter per second squared. Reds correspond to mass excesses which create areas of higher local gravity, and blues correspond to mass deficits which create areas of lower local gravity.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/multimedia/pia16587.html

List of gravity hills

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search

This is a list of gravity hills and magnetic hills around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravity_hills

New one opening soon on the far side of the moon!