we need to go back to the moon and drill down 16 meters and get samples at that or a feasible depth to be sure.
until then (unless there already is data that shows a clear difference in the layers before the accumulation of dust began) then we really have no means of determining the moons age.
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Well, you're right Paul, we can't calculate the age of the moon by seeing how much dust has built up. You seem to be the only one suggesting that method must logically mean the moon can't the so old.Wouldn't scientists just get some rocks kicked up from some impact, and then test the age of those rocks? At the rim of impact craters, they could even get samples from different depths below the original surface.
Do you think thousands of scientist, working over decades, haven't already worked through the logic underlying your objections? Do you think you see more clearly and broadly than all of them collectively? For any individual to see as much as that, would be a great feat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock"Rocks collected from the Moon have been measured by radiometric dating techniques. They range in age from about 3.16 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar maria, up to about 4.5 billion years old for rocks derived from the highlands."
"...decay products changes in a predictable way as the original nuclide decays over time. This predictability allows the relative abundances of related nuclides to be used as a clock to measure
the time from the incorporation of the original nuclides into a material to the present." ...they had a geologist helping them decide which rock samples to choose, didn't they?Paul, I wonder if you think there is bedrock at the base of that footprint... or do you wonder why the moon lander didn't sink into the meters of "dust" they speak of at the landing sites.... Do you know about rheology?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheology...and the effect of heating/cooling cycles as well as gravitational cycles on compressed aggregates....
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And as always, I learned something new from your posts. Your citation: "In October 2011, scientists reported that cosmic dust contains complex organic matter ("amorphous organic solids with a mixed aromatic-aliphatic structure") that could be created
naturally, and rapidly, by stars," confirmed my notion that "humus" or humic substances [HS] exist in space. Those same "organic solids with a mixed aromatic-aliphatic structure" are called "humus" when they are found in the soil. Those chemicals also form "
naturally, and rapidly," in a "reducing" atmosphere, such as existed on early earth. Another name for HS would be the pre-biotic soup, or primordial soup.
When they simulate primordial conditions in the lab, to generate HS, some of the molecules, which
naturally and rapidly form, are the same as molecules used,
currently and broadly, by life. Carbonaceous chondrites contain larger fractions of this "dusty" material, than do other meteor types, which are more "ashy" (metals & chemical salts); but it's all either ashes or dust, in the beginning.
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