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Large parts of the surface of the Moon were forced in huge impact events, a new study has found.
The research used rocks brought back from the Moon almost 50 years ago to overturn the idea that collisions had only destroyed parts of the surface, and that the lunar crust was made when magma rose from the planet's interior.
Instead, it suggests that the kind of spectacular collision that wiped out the dinosaurs might actually have formed the ancient rocks that are still found on the Moon today.
Having conducted new analysis of a sample collected by Nasa astronauts during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, a group of scientists have found that the rock contains evidence that it was formed at incredibly high temperatures.
This would have reached in excess of 2,300C, which the scientists say could have been achieved by the melting of the outer layer in a very large impact event.
Dr James Darling, of the University of Portsmouth, said: "The discovery reveals that unimaginably violent impact events helped to build the lunar crust, not only destroy it.
"Going forward, it is exciting that we now have laboratory tools to help us fully understand their effects on the terrestrial planets."
The team used a technique called electron backscatter diffraction to discover the former presence of cubic zirconia, a mineral phase that would only occur in rocks heated to above 2300C.
Radiometric age dating of the grain at the Swedish Museum of Natural History also revealed that it formed more than 4.3 billion years ago.
As well as helping tell the story of the formation of the Moon, the discovery could give scientists more information about how our own planet came about, scientists said.
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1/10
Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010
Nasa/ESA/STScI
2/10
The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
3/10
Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy
Nasa
4/10
Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth
Getty
5/10
An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust
Nasa
6/10
The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth
Getty
7/10
Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015
Nasa/APL/SwRI
8/10
A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun
Nasa
9/10
Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand
Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona
10/10
Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015
Nasa/Scott Kelly
1/10
Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010
Nasa/ESA/STScI
2/10
The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
3/10
Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy
Nasa
4/10
Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth
Getty
5/10
An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust
Nasa
6/10
The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth
Getty
7/10
Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015
Nasa/APL/SwRI
8/10
A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun
Nasa
9/10
Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand
Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona
10/10
Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015
Nasa/Scott Kelly
"Rocks on Earth are constantly being recycled, but the Moon doesn't exhibit plate tectonics or volcanism, allowing older rocks to be preserved," said Dr. Lee White from the Royal Ontario Museum.
"By studying the Moon, we can better understand the earliest history of our planet. If large, super-heated impacts were creating rocks on the Moon, the same process was probably happening here on Earth".
Researchers from the universities of Portsmouth, Manchester and The Open University, were funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for the study.
The research, titled 'Evidence of extensive lunar crust formation in impact melt sheets 4,330 Myr ago', is published in Nature Astronomy.
Additional reporting by agencies