Report: The Moon Once Made From 20 Mini Moons; Merged To Form Earth's Moon
The Many-Moons theory is suggested by scientists. About 4.5 billion years ago the Earth may have had several moons hat at some point crashed together to form our current celestial buddy.
According to Washington Post, over four billion years ago, the Earth was an asteroid -pummelled mess-exist another planetary body the size of Mars called "Theia"-careened into our baby planet, causing the mother of all impacts.
As a result of this collision, molten rock was ejected into space and some of the mixed-up Earth-Theia debris solidified to create the present moon formation.
Nature Geosciences has proposed a different model on this. They are suggesting that instead of one giant collision the Earth may have experienced many smaller ones. Each of the smaller impacts would have ejected earth debris that could have coalesced into a moonlet.
The co-author of the study Hagai Perets reported that the ancient Earth once hosted a series of moons. Such moonlets were later ejected, or collided with Earth or with each other to form bigger moons.
The idea behind many moon theories has been around since 1980. Scientists predict about 20 moonlets likely combined to form the current moon. Finally, the research team demonstrates for the first time that the process would have been possible.
Later in 2017, the scientist may get a few more clues to the moon's surface formation. However the China's Apollo mission 1970 reports the lunar samples would be very helpful. The giant impact should produce a more homogenous rock, and the composition is varied between different regions.
However, the new model in the journal Nature suggests the impact between Earth and the protoplanet vaporized a good portion of each, mixing them up and making their chemistries similar.
Meanwhile, the formation of the moon is a hot topic in astrogeology. By various line of evidence, it is suggested that the Earth's only permanent satellite was formed by a single massive impact.
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