Abstract
The suggestion that the Moon's magnetic field is due to adiabatic magnetohydrodynamic convection of a molten core has been made by a number of recent authors. Considerations based on petrology, mass and rotational inertia limit the size of this hypothetical core to a few 100 km at the most. A proposal has been made that this core is either molten iron or iron sulfide. Fortunately, we know the properties of both molten iron and iron-sulfide at lunar core pressures. We can find no way of maintaining circulation in a hypothetical lunar core, as circulation is contingent upon a temperature gradient being greater than the adiabatic gradient, or an internal heat source.
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Publication No. 1394, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.A.
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, Calif., U.S.A.
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Kennedy, G.C., Higgins, G.H. A lunar core and the moon's magnetic field. The Moon 12, 401–406 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00577932
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00577932