Fifty years after humans first set foot on the moon, scientists believe rock samples collected by Apollo astronauts could help predict volcanic eruptions on Earth more accurately.
The basaltic fragments, similar to most of the Earth’s volcanic rock, are the remains of the moon’s volcanic past, with studies showing evidence of eruptions up until 1.5 billion to 2 billion years ago. By examining samples from the moon, as well as Mars and the asteroid Vesta, scientists are comparing how rocks are formed under different gravitational conditions; specifically, how gravity affected the magma within rocky bodies billions of years ago.
“At the moment we are facing a disconnect in volcanology where we can monitor what’s happening in a volcano in the present but it’s very difficult to see the future because we have no reference to the past,” Matt Pankhurst of the Canarian Volcanological Institute (INVOLCAN) in Tenerife, leader of the study team, told Reuters. “We’re looking at moon rocks because they have something very special in that they were formed in a lower gravity environment and that changes how the crystals and the melt behave with one another as they’re forming. So studies like this give us a baseline to understand processes that happen at terrestrial gravity on Earth,” he said.
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
For the study, NASA has loaned 18 lunar samples that are normally kept under lock and key at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Between 1969 and 1972 over 2,000 separate samples were collected by the six Apollo missions to land on the moon, amounting to 382kg of rocks, pebbles and dust from the lunar surface.
Ryan Zeigler, NASA’s Apollo sample curator, said the samples used in the study are from the Apollo 12 and 15 missions, some of which came from a wide area of the lunar surface. “Apollo 15 was the first mission where they had the rover (space exploration vehicle) so they were able to traverse a larger area. So they were able to visit a basaltic feature called a rille; basically an old collapsed lava tube. And so this is from a volcanic area, not unlike Hawaii,” Zeigler, holding a fragment of moon rock encased in resin, told Reuters at the Diamond Light Source institute in the UK, where the research is being carried out.
Scientists in Tenerife, the US and the UK are conducting the study. Diamond Light Source, near Oxford, is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, which produces intense beams of light. Here electrons are accelerated to near light speeds until they emit light 10 billion times brighter than the sun, and then directed into laboratories in “beamlines” which allow scientists to study minute specimens using X-ray beams in extreme detail without damaging them.
Pankhurst said it allows them to study “the individual histories of individual crystals” within the rocks. “We’re looking inside the sample and looking at it in ways that we’ve never been able to see before,” he said, while carefully placing a sample into the machine. “If you want to understand how the volcanoes on Earth are going to erupt and in what timescale they’re going to erupt on, studying rocks from other planets will help you actually learn about that more,” said Zeigler.
The study, funded by the UK government and research charity the Wellcome Trust, could also aid our understanding of lunar and planetary formation. “Understanding how volcanism works on other planets lets us understand how the whole solar system formed. So if we want to know how we went from a giant ball of dust to nine planets orbiting around the sun... this is how we’re going to do it; studies like this, on rocks like this,” Zeigler said.
(Reuters)
在人類首次踏上月球五十年後的今天，科學家相信當年阿波羅任務太空人採集到的岩石樣本，有助於更準確預測地球上的火山爆發。
這些玄武岩碎片，就像地球上大部分的火山岩，是月球過去在火山時期留下的遺跡。研究曾證明，月球的火山爆發一直持續到十五億年前至二十億年前之間。藉由檢驗月球，以及火星和小行星「灶神星」的岩石樣本，科學家比較不同重力條件下的岩石形成方式，特別是重力在數十億年前如何對岩石星體內部的岩漿造成影響。
研究團隊的主持人麥特‧潘克斯特來自西班牙特內里費島上的加那利群島火山研究中心，他向路透表示：「現階段，我們的火山學研究正面臨一個斷片。也就是說，我們有能力監測當下某一座火山內部發生的事件，但是預測未來卻非常困難，因為沒有過去的參考資料。」他進一步解釋：「我們正在檢視月球岩石，它們相當特別，是形成於較弱的重力環境中，而這種環境會改變晶體和熔體形成時互相作用的方式。也因此，像這樣的研究可以為我們提供基礎，了解地球上岩石受地心引力影響的進程。」
為了這份研究，美國太空總署借出十八件月球岩石樣本，它們平常都被安全地鎖在德州休士頓的詹森太空中心。在一九六九年到一九七二年間，六次阿波羅登月任務總共收集到兩千多件樣本，這些總重三百八十二公斤的岩石、卵石和塵土都是來自月球表面。
美國太空總署的阿波羅任務樣本管理員瑞安‧齊格勒表示，這次研究使用的樣本來自阿波羅十二號和十五號任務，其中一些岩石取自大範圍的月球表面。在英國的「鑽石光源」研究中心，也就是這次研究進行的地點，齊格勒手中拿著一塊密封在合成樹脂中的月球岩石碎片，向路透解釋：「阿波羅十五號是首次帶有月球車（太空探索車）的任務，所以太空人能夠橫越更大的區域，也因此得以造訪一處玄武岩地景「月溪」，基本上就是一條老舊坍塌的天然熔岩通道。像這個碎片就是來自火山區，有點像夏威夷。」
在特內里費島、美國、英國的科學家們都參與了這項研究，而鄰近英國牛津的「鑽石光源」則是英國的國家級同步加速器科學研究中心，具備製造強烈光束的能力。在這裡，電子會被加速到接近光速，直到它們放射出比太陽明亮一百億倍的光線，再經由「光束線」傳入實驗室中，讓科學家用這種X光束對微小的樣本進行極為詳細的研究，才不致於損害樣本。
潘克斯特指出，這項科技讓他們得以研究岩石中「個別晶體的獨特歷史」。他一面小心地把樣本放進機器中，同時表示：「我們正在深入觀察樣本內部，許多層面都是我們以前從來沒有辦法看到的。」齊格勒則指出：「如果你想了解地球上的火山會如何爆發，以及它們將在什麼時間尺度中爆發，研究來自其它行星的岩石將會幫助你真正了解這些問題。」
由英國政府和科學研究慈善機構「惠康基金會」資助的這項研究，也有助於認識月球和行星的形成。齊格勒說：「理解火山作用如何影響其它行星，能讓我們了解整個太陽系如何形成。所以，如果想知道我們是怎麼從一顆巨大塵埃球狀物，變成九顆行星繞著太陽轉，這就是要做的研究；就像這樣的研究、研究這樣的石頭。」
（台北時報章厚明譯）
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