Scientists detected a peculiar blob of heat-emitting material buried on the far side of the moon. The most likely culprit is a rock that is very rare outside of Earth.
This mysterious hotspot has a strange origin: It's likely caused by the natural radiation emanating from a huge buried mass of granite, which is rarely found in large quantities outside of Earth, according to new research. On the moon, a dead volcano that hasn't erupted for 3.5 billion years is likely the source of this unusual hunk of granite.
Siegler and his colleague Rita Economos of Southern Methodist University discovered the heat with a new method using microwaves to measure subsurface temperatures via the Chinese lunar orbiters Chang'E 1 and 2. They also used data from NASA's Lunar Prospector and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters. "This find is a 50 km-wide batholith; a batholith is a type of volcanic rock that forms when lava rises into the Earth's crust but does not erupt onto the surface," Economos said in the statement."El Capitan and Half Dome, in Yosemite in California are examples of similar granite rocks which have risen to the surface.
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