Stress differences in the moon as an evidence for a cold moon

Assuming that the lateral variations of density in the lunar crust, the crustal density anomalies, are responsible for the lateral undulations of the lunar gravitational potential, we compute these anomalies for four different lunar models, which include an entirely solid Moon and three different solid lunar models with partially molten layers located within 600 km depth. The stress differences created by the density anomalies are determined for these models. It is found that, since the formation of the mascons, the entirely solid lunar model should have supported stress differences of the order of 70 bars while in the case of the other models, the solid layer overlying the partially molten one should have supported stress differences of more than 100 bars. The high stress differences associated with the partially molten models lead us to conclude that these models are not proper ones, and thus the Moon has always been solid since the formation of the mascons. Lunar Science Institute Contribution No. 97. The research in this paper was done while the author was a Visiting Scientist at the Lunar Science Institute, which is operated by the Universities Space Research Association under Contract No. NSR 09-051-001 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.