Moon's surface once a magma ocean, suggests Isro's Chandrayaan-3 data

Data from ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission supports the theory that the Moon was once covered in an ocean of magma, or a 'magma ocean', an analysis, published in the journal Nature, has suggested.

The analysis pertained to measurements of the lunar soil, recorded by the Pragyan rover and taken at multiple points along a 100-metre track on the surface.

The rover was deployed by the Vikram lander, which made a soft landing near the south pole of the Moon on August 23, 2023. Chandrayaan-3, consisting of the lander and rover, was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Bengaluru.

The study's authors, including those from the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, said that previous missions, such as NASA's Apollo and the Soviet Union's Luna, have mainly relied on samples of soil taken from equitorial and mid-latitude regions of the Moon, respectively.

Analysing Pragyan's data, which came from the Moon's south pole, the researchers found that the samples suggested that