Strange substance discovered on the moon is mysteriously reflective and magnetic

SCIENTISTS have stumbled across a special type of moon dust with unusual properties.

The dust blocks have magnetic and reflective properties and were found in the Reiner Gamma vortex.

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This area consists of a dark and reflective spot on the moon's surface.

One theory behind the formation of lunar vortices like Reiner Gamma is that they are produced by magnetized rock.

Another theory is that they are created by the interaction between magnetic particles and electrically charged fine dust particles.

It is also possible that the vortices and magnetic fields were formed by material from comet impacts.

All these theories could explain the strange magnetic properties of the newly discovered dust.

Scientists came across the strange findings while looking through a million images of rocks taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

And they found something interesting in the Reiner K crater, which is located near the Reiner Gamma vortex.

One dust-covered rock reflected light in a way they had never seen before.

“We recognized a boulder with striking dark areas in just one image,” said Ottaviano Rüsch, a planetary scientist at the University of Münster in Germany, who led the latest research said.

“This rock was very different from all the others because it scatters less light back toward the sun than other rocks.”

This prompted the researchers to try to identify more dust-covered boulders using AI.

Scientists have managed to locate about 130,000 potential boulders with similar reflective properties.

So far, the researchers have analyzed about half of the newly discovered boulders.

Scientists believe this discovery and new research could shed light on the moon's magnetic history.

The team says their next step is to look deeply at their findings and figure out how lunar vortices form.

Future research efforts could also potentially include collecting samples from the moon.

NASA, in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, also hopes to send a lunar lander to Reiner Gamma later this year.

The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets.