Fiery Orange Gems From The Moon Reveal Secrets of Its Violent Past

It started with a spark: The history of the colour orange

We are taking a look back at stories from Cosmos Magazine in print. It’s a colour, but it’s also the fruit, the butterfly’s wing, the flash of sun in a rock and the glow of the infant universe… It’s far more than a narrow band of wavelengths. In this lyrical story from December 2023, Ashley Hay illuminates the history of orange and how it may have made us human. It’s a spring night in south-east Queensland, just before the rising of a slightly w…

Fiery Orange Gems From The Moon Reveal Secrets of Its Violent Past

When Apollo astronauts first set foot on the lunar surface, they expected to find grey rocks and dust.

The Moon is Covered in Tiny Orange Glass Beads. Now We Know Why.

When the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, they discovered drifts of tiny brilliant orange glass beads glittering across the surface. Each one less than 1 mm across and formed about 3.6 billion years ago. These microscopic treasures, each smaller than a pinhead, had been hiding their secrets for billions of years. Now, cutting edge technology has finally cracked the mystery: they're perfect time capsules from the Moon's explosive volcanic pa…

Why the moon glitters with ancient glass beads

When Apollo astronauts walked on the moon in the 1970s, they made all kinds of unexpected discoveries. One of the most surprising was the sight of bright orange, glassy beads sparkling among the otherwise gray dust and rocks. These tiny beads—each smaller than a millimeter—have fascinated scientists ever since. Now, researchers from Washington University in […] The post Why the moon glitters with ancient glass beads appeared first on Knowridge S…