Through recovering the lost tapes of Apollo moon missions, scientists finally have an answer on why the lunar surface became bizarrely warmer during the 1970s.
The Apollo 15 and 17 missions in 1971 and 1972 involved the deployment of probes that measured the heat coming from the moon's interior. Raw temperature data from these probes were subsequently transmitted to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston until 1977.
Scientists who analyzed this data observed a strange uptick in the temperature from the moon's surface. The uptick was monitored all throughout after the Apollo missions started in 1971 until when the probes stopped generating records in 1977.
For decades, this peculiar temperature from the moon baffled experts. They had few theories: the astronaut's activity in the moon propelled this eerie temperature rise, the moon's changing orbit brought about the change in the heat, or the heat itself was excess radiation coming from Earth.
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