• Scarps Show Moon is Shrinking
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    Random Scarps Show the Moon Is Shrinking
    The thousands of small cliff-like features discovered in LROC images throughout the lunar highlands provide evidence of a shrinking Moon. Planetary geologists call them lobate scarps. Here, one cuts across a large impact crater. Lobate scarps are faults formed when the lunar crust breaks as it shrinks and thrusts blocks of rock upward. The shrinking occurs as more of the Moon's interior slowly cools and thus takes up less space.

    Image ID: M156626383LR
    Camera: NAC
    Image width: 4.3 km (2.7 mi.)

  • Scarps Show Moon is Shrinking

ID#:

M156626383LR

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NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

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NASA/GSFC/ Arizona State University

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