Moon created in violent collision with Earth, clues in Apollo rocks suggest.

The Guardian ^ | 6/52014 | Ian Sample

[Natufian]

A new analysis of lunar rocks brought home by Apollo mission astronauts has shed fresh light on the violent birth of the moon. Researchers in Germany have found small but distinctive chemical signatures that suggest the moon formed when a giant planetary body slammed into the early Earth 4.5bn years ago.

Scientists have several theories for how the moon may have formed, but the "giant impact hypothesis" has been the leading explanation for some time. A cataclysmic impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized planet, known as Theia, would have scattered rock and dust from both bodies out into space, and these fragments would then have coalesced to form the moon.

[Resettozero]

...the Moon is receding slowly from the Earth.

Can you blame it?

[Moonman62]

If someone dares ask “how” are they going to Hell?

That's one way to defend ignorance. Pol Pot had, and Boko Harum have other methods.

[Rebel_Ace]

The Moon actually revolves on it's own axis in 28 and some fraction of a day, exactly the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. In orbital mechanics, this is called being "tidally locked".

The Moon is returning the favor, by slowing down the Earth's rotation, so that in some few billion years our planet will face the same side of the Moon as well.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

How many moons of other planets do that?

[Resettozero]

Back to Velikovsky: That was the first time I had read about the earth’s magnetic poles having shifted more than a couple of times. Later, I learned that was true.

[DManA]

Pretty ambiguous. Care to clarify?

[expat2]

I have believed that was a likely possibility for a number of years. I believe the moon was torn out of where the Pacific is, whihch is why Continental drift separated the Americas from Africa (S America) and from Europe (N America).

[DManA]

Not sure how the left side of your “but” is connected to the right side.

[DManA]

IF it happened 4.5 billion year ago it was probable before the continents formed.

[Natufian]

I think the two events were separated by several billion years.

[yarddog]

That makes it one more coincidence then.

[Natufian]

Seems likely that the collision would have rendered the entire planet molten which would indicate a date in the multi-billion year range.

[freerepublicchat]

The fact that the moon is not revolving so that we can see all sides of it during the course of its revolution means it had to have spun off from Earth.

I think you mean it doesn't rotate, but it does. It rotates once per revolution around the earth. Tidal locking is responsible for this situation.

[Yo-Yo]

Moon created in violent collision with Earth, clues in Apollo rocks suggest.

Glad to see we're finally getting around to looking at those Moon rocks that Apollo brought back.

[Yo-Yo]

The fact that the moon is not revolving so that we can see all sides of it during the course of its revolution means it had to have spun off from Earth.

No, it's a phenomenon called "tidal lock."

[ICE-FLYER]

Yet another theory sold and peddled as fact by man!

[Resettozero]

Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision” touches on it as well.

And don't forget that Mars and Venus also were involved greatly in V's scenario.

[DManA]

I touched a moon rock.

When I was a kid our family visited Sweden. In (I think) Stockholm NASA has a display about the moon landings including box that held a moon rock, part of it exposed. If you waited in line you could touch it.

[Squawk 8888]

The moon is revolving, however the period of revolution is the same as the period of its orbit. This is caused by the phenomenon of “tidal lock”, where earth’s gravity over time causes the denser part of the moon to face it.

[Natufian]

Yeah, that damned pesky scientific evidence!