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It is one of several large basins responsible for much of the porosity of the moon's crust. The moon’s Mare Orientale is a crater approximately 3.9 billion years old and nearly 1,000 kilometers in diameter. Using the moon as a test subject, Johnson, Wiggins and their team set out to quantify the relationship between impacts and a planet’s porosity. Even on Earth, every single spot has been affected by at least three big impacts. A YouTube video is available online.Įvery solid body in the solar system is constantly pummeled by impacts, both large and small.

Studying how those impacts affect planetary bodies, asteroids, moons and other rocks in space helps planetary scientists including Brandon Johnson, associate professor, and Sean Wiggins, postdoctoral researcher, in the College of Science’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, understand extraplanetary geology, especially where to look for precious matter including water, ice and even, potentially, microbial life. Cracks, massive or tiny, form and bear a silent, permanent witness to the impact. Or, if not break open, at least lose a little bit of its structural integrity, the way baseball players pummel new gloves to make them softer and more flexible. The harder you hit something – a ball, a walnut, a geode – the more likely it is to break open. Impacts affect the porosity and structure of moons and planets more dramatically than scientists suspected, increasing their potential habitability for life