Man in the moon

The Man in the Moon may offer more evidence that Earth's satellite took a pounding, Ohio State University scientists say. Laramie Potts and Ralph von Frese trace warps in the moon's surface to a large object that blasted one side of the moon and sent shock waves toward the Earth side, possibly releasing the dark, frozen magma that we see as the Man in the Moon. The scientists mapped the inside of the moon with data on gravity fluctuations from NASA's Clementine and Lunar Prospector spacecraft, according to a news release. They saw a piece of the mantle on what they say is the impacted side still pushing into the core, while on the side that faces Earth, there's a bulge in the mantle and the surface. Earth's gravitational pull also had an effect. They speculate that the kind of impacts on the moon that potentially caused magma "hot spots" did the same thing on Earth and are investigating the idea. Read the full news release for details.