Tiny Orange Beads Found By Apollo Astronauts Reveal Moon's Volcanic Past

"When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity," writes ScienceDaily. These glass spheres, tiny yet mesmerizing, formed billions of years ago during fiery eruptions that launched molten droplets skyward, instantly freezing in space. Now, using advanced instruments that didn't exist in the 1970s, scientists have examined the beads in unprecedented detail. The result is a remarkable window into the moon's dynamic geological history, revealing how eruption styles evolved and how lunar conditions once mirrored explosive events we see on Earth today... Analyses of orange and black lunar beads have shown that the style of volcanic eruptions changed over time. "It's like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist," said Ryan Ogliore [an associate professor of physics at Missouri's Washington University, which has a large repository of lunar samples that were returned to Earth]. "The beads are tiny, pristine capsules of the lunar interior..." says Ogliore. "We've had these samples for 50 years, but we now have the technology to fully understand them..." "The very existence of these beads tells us the moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today." Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jun 22, 2025 - 17:41

Tiny Orange Beads Found By Apollo Astronauts Reveal Moon's Volcanic Past

"When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity," writes ScienceDaily. These glass spheres, tiny yet mesmerizing, formed billions of years ago during fiery eruptions that launched molten droplets skyward, instantly freezing in space. Now, using advanced instruments that didn't exist in the 1970s, scientists have examined the beads in unprecedented detail. The result is a remarkable window into the moon's dynamic geological history, revealing how eruption styles evolved and how lunar conditions once mirrored explosive events we see on Earth today... Analyses of orange and black lunar beads have shown that the style of volcanic eruptions changed over time. "It's like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist," said Ryan Ogliore [an associate professor of physics at Missouri's Washington University, which has a large repository of lunar samples that were returned to Earth]. "The beads are tiny, pristine capsules of the lunar interior..." says Ogliore. "We've had these samples for 50 years, but we now have the technology to fully understand them..." "The very existence of these beads tells us the moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today." Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news.