Two Impacts May Have Formed the Moon

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Graeme1858 Great Britain
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Two Impacts May Have Formed the Moon

#1

Post by Graeme1858 »


It may have taken two tries to make the Moon.

Scientists have long thought that the Moon formed with a bang, when a protoplanet the size of Mars hit the newborn Earth. Evidence from Moon rocks and simulations back up this idea.

But a new study suggests that the protoplanet most likely hit Earth twice. The first time, the impactor (dubbed "Theia") only glanced off Earth. Then, some hundreds of thousands of years later, it came back to deliver the final blow.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-n ... -the-moon/
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notFritzArgelander
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Re: Two Impacts May Have Formed the Moon

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Post by notFritzArgelander »


Very intriguing. Thanks!

PS It turns out that the full paper is open access.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ac19b2
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helicon United States of America
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Re: Two Impacts May Have Formed the Moon

#3

Post by helicon »


That's cool. A double whammy for early earth.
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