NASA astronauts will be heading back to the moon by 2025 and professors and students from Albion College in southern Michigan are helping with research. Albion Physics Department chair, professor Nicolle Zellner, will study lunar crust samples from previous Apollo lunar missions.
“I’m going to be looking at a very specific kind of sample that’s made during energetic impacts by comets and asteroids onto the moon. By investigating those samples and understanding when they were made, how they were formed, we can start to answer questions about the timeline of bombardment in the solar system.”
Zellner says the samples will also tell them about the volcanic history of the moon when it was geologically active. She says students will also be involved in the research. Another Albion professor, geology professor Carrie Menold, will work on outreach with local teachers and citizen scientists.
