# Asteroid found close to Moon's surface?



## Serendipity (Jun 11, 2019)

Mysterious chunk was spotted by Nasa spacecraft and may be a vast chunk of metal... opens up the possibility for some serious economic mining here... the Moon here we come...









						Huge, unexplained 'mass' spotted under the Moon
					

Mysterious chunk was spotted by Nasa spacecraft and may be vast lump of metal




					www.independent.co.uk


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## mosaix (Jun 11, 2019)

Some conspiracy theorist will come along, no doubt, and claim it's an underground alien base used to monitor the Earth.


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## Cathbad (Jun 11, 2019)

mosaix said:


> Some conspiracy theorist will come along, no doubt, and claim it's an underground alien base used to monitor the Earth.


How did you know that?

-must contact  superiors on Ork-


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 11, 2019)

mosaix said:


> Some conspiracy theorist will come along, no doubt, and claim it's an underground alien base used to monitor the Earth.



Got seriously confused by your comment and the thread title...how could an asteroid (which I assumed must be orbiting or close to the moon) also be underground 

I mean is an asteroid that is part of the crust an asteroid? I think at best you could call it the remains of an asteroid! (If it's that, they also posit an alternative right at the end...) Interestingly, there is speculation that a great deal of precious metals and rare earth metals that we can mine on the Earth must have come from asteroids in the heavy late bombardment, as most of the heavy metals originally on the Earth would have sunk towards the core when the Earth was molten.

Anyway it's sitting underneath a crater, doesn't say exactly how far into the crust, but mentions 'hundreds of miles'. So I would not expect it to be top of our list of things to mine. Especially within a gravity well. Still better to go and find a nice metallic asteroid and nudge it into Earth orbit, when we need metal to make lots of things in space...

...and if it is an underground base. That is seriously deep. A bit overoverkill on secrecy.


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## KiraAnn (Jun 11, 2019)

mosaix said:


> Some conspiracy theorist will come along, no doubt, and claim it's an underground alien base used to monitor the Earth.



What?  SHADO didn’t stop them?


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## Vince W (Jun 12, 2019)

Clearly it will contain remnants of the Minervan civilisation.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 12, 2019)

Vince W said:


> Clearly it will contain remnants of the Minervan civilisation.


That or it's the Soup Dragon's home. The clangers have to live somewhere.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jun 13, 2019)

It's a spaceship like in the 1951 movie The Thing. They'll blow it up like they always do and no one will get to see what it looked like.


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## Dave (Jun 13, 2019)

Sorry, I haven't time to read the article now, but are they saying that this "vast chuck of metal" is somehow unusual? 

I have to go out but given that asteroids/meteorites are generally of two types - Stoney or Iron/Nickel - a large meteorite that is mostly Iron doesn't strike me as very strange on its own. That is the basis of all the many science fiction stories containing future 'Belter' miners. Nor does it seem that strange that it could have hit the Moon at some angle that meant it that stayed in one piece, and there is no atmosphere to cause it to burn up as it would on Earth.


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## Venusian Broon (Jun 13, 2019)

Dave said:


> Sorry, I haven't time to read the article now, but are they saying that this "vast chuck of metal" is somehow unusual?
> 
> I have to go out but given that asteroids/meteorites are generally of two types - Stoney or Iron/Nickel - a large meteorite that is mostly Iron doesn't strike me as very strange on its own. That is the basis of all the many science fiction stories containing future 'Belter' miners. Nor does it seem that strange that it could have hit the Moon at some angle that meant it that stayed in one piece, and there is no atmosphere to cause it to burn up as it would on Earth.



Essentially the article is that they've found an anomalous chunk of something a couple hundred of kilometres under the southern pole that lines up with a huge crater. Probably a iron asteroid deep in the moons crust. Unless you are planning on seriously strip mining the moon or breaking it up, unlikely ever to be touched by human hand. 

Third main type of asteroid is the 'carboniferous' one, which is mainly water and carbon based.


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## Cathbad (Jun 13, 2019)

It's a spaceship.


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## Dave (Jun 13, 2019)

I've read article. It isn't "mysterious" or unexplainable, it's just unusual. It would be great if it was an alien spacecraft but I think the odds are against that.


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 14, 2019)

Curiously, there's no mention of the announcement made last month that a proto-planet may have struck the Moon: Giant impact caused difference between Moon's hemispheres


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## MaxiPower (Jun 15, 2019)

Aliens, they have come for us all.


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