Posted on 05/07/2024 6:21:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
A new study of metal ore deep inside the moon is offering fresh evidence that Earth's natural satellite was formed by an ancient planet crashing into Earth long ago.
This long-theorized interplanetary collision — which scientists believe occurred some 4.5 billion years ago — saw a Mars-sized planet named 'Theia' slice itself into hot lava fragments upon impact with the Earth.
While some of Theia's planetary remains appear to be buried as dense and massive 'blobs' deep underneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean's tectonic plates, scientists said evidence for where the rest of Theia went after this crash had remained elusive.
But now, new data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has found large telltale deposits of titanium-iron ore deep beneath the moon's surface, suggesting Theia's other remains did, in fact, form Earth's moon.
Planetary geophysicist, Adrien Broquet of the German Aerospace Center in Berlin, described NASA's GRAIL findings as nothing short of 'mesmerizing.'
His team's new paper, published this April in Nature Geoscience, focused on 'gravity anomalies' deep under the moon's surface: dense, heavy pockets of matter identified by the GRAIL spacecraft's sensors.
'Analyzing these variations in the moon's gravity field allowed us to peek under the moon's surface and see what lies beneath,' Broquet said.
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(1) being not true in this context rather derails your argument.
So go back and determine, even roughly, the mass of all of the buildings, structures, vehicles, digital watches, and road surfaces, man has made on the earth so far, so you can at least get an idea of what portion of the moon’s mass you might be talking about.
I think more importantly the Earth became more massive and so better able to retain its atmosphere. Also the additional metal increased the Earth’s magnetic field.
This collision also gave Earth a massive moon that stabilized its rotation.
This massive moon is more responsible for the Earth’s tectonic activity than the collision it’s self.
The biggest mystery for me about the collision is how did the Earth’s large volume of water survive this collision. The amount of heat added to the Earth by the collision should have vaporized nearly every drop of water on the planet ejecting it in too space. Did the Earth’s water arrive later?
Accretion is galactic, universal
Eventually it will ALL accrete back together.........................
Actually this has been the dominant theory for the moons formation for quite a long time now.
Also the moon was at one point two different moons, where the second moon eventually collided with the first, sort of smearing itself across half the other, creating the moon today, explaining why the earths surface makeup is so different on differing sides.
The earth/moon system is unique, at least within our solar system. Our moon is just insanely large relative to the planets size. No other planet in this system can compare… not sure if they have sound examples similar in other solar systems yet, but it is clearly a rare occurrence to have a planet with such a massive moon relative to the planets size. Only Jupiter and Saturn have moons as large or larger than the earths moon.
This of course helps explain some of the rather unique features of earth, probably the most notable being the stable 23 degree procession, without that life on earth anyway would likely have been very very different. Etc etc.
you may be right
You are correct.
Such events appear to be very, very rare.
Sorry that should read “The moon’s service makeup is so different on differing sides” not “the earth’s surface”
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