Monday 19 September 2022 09:35 PM Asteroid impacts MOVED the moon's north and south pole about 186 miles over ... trends now

Ancient collisions with asteroids actually moved the moon's north and south pokes by about 186 miles, scientists revealed in a new study.

A team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland used computer simulations to 'erase' thousands of craters from the lunar surface - as if they were going back in time to 4.25 billion years ago when the craters didn't exist.

Their work led them to discover that asteroid impacts caused the location of the poles to 'wander' by 10 degrees in latitude or about 186 miles. To put that in perspective, the moon's total diameter is 2,159 miles.

These wandering poles can teach scientists more about the poles, which are considered more prized regions because of the frozen water that's been discovered there. 

Vishnu Viswanathan, a NASA Godard scientist who led the study, said in a statement: 'Based on the Moon’s cratering history, polar wander appears to have been moderate enough for water near the poles to have remained in the shadows and enjoyed stable conditions over billions of years.'

Asteroid impacts excavate mass and leave depressions in the surface, or pockets of lower mass, but the moon would reorient itself to bring those pockets toward the poles - while bringing areas of higher mass out toward the equator via centrifugal force. 

As NASA notes in a blog post, this is the same force that causes pizza dough to stretch out when a chef tosses it and spins it in the air.

'If you look at the Moon with all these craters on it, you can see those in the gravity field data,' said David Smith, principal investigator for the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter. 'I thought, "Why can’t I just take one of those craters and suck it out, remove the signature completely?"'