NASA talks cause of geysers of lava on ancient moon's surface

The image you see here is an eruption of a fire fountain in Iceland and NASA says that this phenomenon is similar to what would have been happening in multiple locations on the surface of the ancient moon. The eruption in Iceland was caused by water and carbon dioxide gas, but those two things weren't what caused similar eruptions on the surface of the early moon.

NASA believes that these eruptions on the surface of the ancient moon were caused by carbon monoxide. NASA researchers believe that the composition of the early moon was very much like the early Earth. NASA researcher Alberto Sail says that the volatile elements on the early moon were very similar to the lava that formed the ocean floor of the Earth.

Scientists have determined that carbon monoxide could be behind the fire fountains on the early moon from studies of volcanic glasses that are found on the surface of the moon. Scientists say that the glass on the surface of the moon is like little time capsules of lunar conditions from the time the glass hardened.

Scientists say as the magma rose from deeper within the moon to the surface, the gasses escaped eventually leading to lava fountaining out of the surface of the moon. The identification of carbon in moon samples was made using a new measurement technique with enough resolution and the ability to eliminate noise effectively enough to discover the carbon.

SOURCE: Space