Simulation shows: The moon probably formed within a few hours
Created: 2022-10-14, 6:16 p.m
By: Tanya Banner
How exactly did our moon form?
A simulation shows how long it took to form and why the moon is so similar to earth.
Durham - For billions of years, the moon has accompanied the earth and influenced the climate and the origin of life - but how did the moon actually form?
The current theory is that 4.5 billion years ago, the roughly Mars-sized protoplanet Theia collided with Earth.
Theia was destroyed in the collision, the resulting fragments collected in Earth orbit and later formed the moon.
Up to this point, the research is fairly consistent and certain.
But from here it becomes unclear: How exactly the moon came into being, what it was formed from and how long this process lasted has not yet been clearly clarified.
But now a new study sheds some light on the formation of the moon: With the help of a supercomputer, a research team led by NASA scientist Jacob Kegerreis simulated the formation of the moon.
The researchers found that the moon was formed within just a few hours after the Theia impact.
"This opens up a whole range of new possibilities for the evolution of the moon," says Kegerreis, whose study was published in
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
.
fr.de summarizes.
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Simulation shows how the moon was formed
The researchers, most of whom work at Durham University in the UK, simulated hundreds of different impacts of a celestial body on Earth.
They varied the impact angle and the speed of the collision as well as the rotational movement and the masses of the two colliding bodies.
Their goal: they wanted to find a scenario with which the earth-moon system could be explained - because the previous attempts at explanation still leave unanswered questions.
How was the moon formed?
A simulation should show it.
(symbol image) © Dr.
Jacob Kegerreis/Nasa
Moon apparently formed within hours in Earth orbit
The new simulation not only explains how the moon was formed within a very short time after the impact, it also solves a mystery that has puzzled researchers since the first astronauts landed on the moon and brought moon rocks back to earth: Why is some moon rock in so similar in composition to terrestrial rock?
The simulation shows it: The outer layers of the moon were apparently formed mainly from material that was knocked out of the earth during the collision.
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Vincent Eke, a co-author of the study, explains: "This formation pathway could explain the similarity in isotopic composition between the lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and the Earth's mantle." The history of the Moon and Earth is "intertwined," Eke continues.
"The more we learn about how the moon formed, the more we learn about the evolution of our own Earth." (tab)