Author Topic: The Moon Was Created When Earth Collided Head-On With A Young Planet  (Read 594 times)

hubag bohol

  • AMBASSADOR
  • THE SOURCE
  • *****
  • Posts: 89964
  • "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...
    • View Profile
17 hours ago


Our moon is the debris formed in a violent, head-on collision between our Earth and a ‘planetary embryo’ called Theia, scientists say.

The massive crash took place 4.5 billion years go - just 100 million years after the Earth formed.

Scientists already knew about the crash, but it had previously been believed that Earth collided with Theia at an angle.

But new analysis of rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo missions - and volcanic rocks from Earth’s mantle, found in Hawaii, shows the collision was much more violent.

The key to reconstructing the giant impact was a chemical signature revealed in the rocks’ oxygen atoms.

The oxygen isotopes found in rocks from different planets in the solar system is different, the researchers say - with each having a distinctive fingerprint.

‘We don’t see any difference between the Earth’s and the Moon’s oxygen isotopes; they’re indistinguishable,’ said Edward Young, lead author of the new study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry.

Young’s research team used state-of-the-art technology and techniques to make extraordinarily precise and careful measurements, and verified them with UCLA’s new mass spectrometer.

The fact that oxygen in rocks on the Earth and our Moon share chemical signatures was very telling, Young said.

‘Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the Moon, and evenly dispersed between them,” Young said.

‘This explains why we don’t see a different signature of Theia in the Moon versus the Earth.’

Theia, which did not survive the collision (except that it now makes up large parts of Earth and the Moon) was growing and probably would have become a planet if the crash had not occurred, Young said. --  http://news.yahoo.com/

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=81801.0
...than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

Book your travel tickets anywhere in the world, go to www.12go.co

unionbank online loan application low interest, credit card, easy and fast approval

Tags: