New impact models boost Moon-from-Earth theory

Feb 07, 2013 |

Moon could have indeed been born from the compositionally similar Earth, following a giant collision, new models have indicated.

The giant impact theory — the idea that a catastrophic collision about 4.5 billion years ago between Earth and a protoplanet about half Earth’s size created a disk of molten rock, gas and debris that consolidated to form the Moon — was first set forth in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, computer modelling of the physics of such a collision suggested the Moon would have for-med mainly from the remnants of the pulverised foreign body, not from pieces of Earth, Earth magazine reported.

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