The maria contains iron causing it to have a high density and darker color. The lunar highlands are light-colored areas elevated above the Maria. The highlands are largely made of low-density rocks rich in aluminum. The highlands are much older than the maria and are much more heavily cratered.
What is the difference between the lunar maria and lunar highlands?
The side facing the earth consists of dark (basaltic) lava filled basins called mare (maria) or seas. The lighter areas are heavily impacted terrain called the highlands. These contrasting features can easily be seen with the naked eye.
What is the difference between maria and Terrea?
Maria is the plural, seas (pronounced Mah-ree-a). While we see much of this when viewed from earth, only 17% of the lunar surface is classed as maria. These were mistaken by early astronomers for seas and are also known as the lowlands. Terrae is the collective name for highlands.
Why are maria darker than the lunar highlands?
However, the lunar basalts are completely devoid of water and contain few volatile elements. The Moon’s basaltic rocks are fine-grained composed mainly by iron, magnesium and titanium. The maria appear dark due to their high iron and titanium content that lead to about half of the highlands albedo.
What are the lunar highlands?
highlands: the lighter, heavily cratered regions of the Moon, which are generally several kilometers higher than the maria. mare: (plural: maria) Latin for “sea;” the name applied to the dark, relatively smooth features that cover 17% of the Moon’s surface.
What is the main visual difference between the lunar highlands and the lunar maria What are the implications of this observation?
What is the main visual difference between the lunar highlands and the lunar maria? What are the implications of this observation? The lunar highlands are very heavily cratered and the lunar maria are generally smooth. (More specifically, the maria contain only 3 percent as many craters per unit area as the highlands.)
How does the age of the lunar highlands compare to the age of the lunar maria quizlet?
How does the age of the lunar highlands compare to the age of the lunar maria? The maria are a few hundred million years younger.
What is true of the lunar maria?
The lunar maria (or plains), which were formed between 3.1 and 3.9 billion years ago, are the youngest geologic units on the lunar surface, except for more recent impact craters. The release of heat from large impacts caused extensive melting and extrusion of basaltic lavas on the moon.
How did the lunar maria form?
The maria basins were formed beginning about 3.9 billion years ago during a period of intense bombardment by asteroid-sized bodies. This was well after the lunar crust had cooled and solidified enough, following the Moon’s formation, to retain large impact scars.
What is the lunar maria How did it form?
The lunar maria (/ˈmɑːriə/; singular: mare /ˈmɑːreɪ/) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth’s Moon, formed by ancient asteroid impacts on the far side on the Moon that triggered volcanic activity on the opposite (near) side.
Why are the lunar highlands more heavily cratered than the maria?
The highlands are much older than the maria and are much more heavily cratered.
What evidence shows that the lunar highlands are older than the lunar maria?
Two pieces of evidence that indicates the lunar highlands are older than maria is that maria has few craters, and the highlands have large and more common.
Why are the lunar maria so flat?
The maria were formed after large impacts from meteors carved out basins in the lunar crust. When the Moon was volcanic, magma seeped to the surface, filled the basins and eventually hardened, resulting in the relatively smooth flat areas seen today.
What is true about the lunar highlands?
What is true of the lunar highlands? They are the oldest part of the lunar surface. they range from 4.6 – 4.4 billion years old, on average. the Moon lacks wind, water and an atmosphere.
What color are lunar highlands?
red
Areas appearing red generally correspond to the lunar highlands, while blue to orange shades indicate the ancient volcanic lava flow of a mare, or lunar sea.
What created the lunar highlands?
The Indian mission through the Moon mineralogy mapper has offered proof that the Moon’s highlands were formed by the eruption of a hot liquid inside the Moon’s surface popularly known as magma.
What are two major differences between the Moon and Mercury?
Unlike the Moon, Mercury has great cliffs, thousands of kilometers long, that may be wrinkles formed as the planet cooled and shrank. Mercury is denser than the Moon, and it seems to have a large iron core, the source of a weak but detectable magnetic field, a feature the Moon lacks.
Does the lunar maria have stronger areas of gravity?
Interestingly, astronomers found that the gravity of the moon fluctuated as one was to explore various areas of the moon, and saw that the force of gravity was much greater just above the more round and circularly shaped maria.
In which way are the rocks of the lunar maria different from those that make up Earth’s oceanic crust?
In which way are the rocks of the lunar maria different from those that make up Earth’s oceanic crust? a. The maria are made of lighter-colored, more felsic rocks than those of the oceanic crust.
Which surface is older the highlands or the maria and how can you tell from this photo?
If we look at the highlands, we see that they are covered with lots and lots of craters. This tells us that in general, the highlands are older than the maria, which have fewer craters. We also know that if we see a crater on top of a mare, the mare is older.
How can you determine the relative ages of the Moon’s maria and highlands?
How could you find the relative ages of the moon’s maria and highlands? Radioactive dating, crater density, lava flows.