It looks so tranquil up there . So still . But we know space is neither tranquil nor still . Our own Moon is no exception . New research suggests the Moon was the merchandise of some very , very violent slam : Around 4.5 billion year ago , a rowdy gang of star objective smashed into our new satellite , creating the dust that would one Clarence Day become the Moon . The astronomers release their account in the journalNature Geoscience .
We ’ve known for a while now that the Moon is made at least partly out of slice from a banged - up Earth . But we ’re still stress to sort out the item of the collision itself . At first , scientists thought Earth had been rack up by one openhanded object , like another planet . Then they remember there must have been a bunch of objects all strike around the same time . As we learned more , the exclusive - impactor theory returned to protrusion and stayed there for decades .
One 2016studynamed the object — the planet Theia — and even the angle of wallop . The researchers theorized that the passing similar molecular make-up of Earth and the Moon could only have leave from a headland - on hit .
Other astronomers disagree . The generator of the new paper ran hundreds of simulations , and they debate it ’s far more potential that Earth was walloped by a mark of different objects called planetesimals . Each of the restate impingement break up a immense amount of the young major planet ’s matter . That dust then float into orbit around Earth , where it settled into disks , which then solve into little ( gargantuan ) chunks called moonlets . Over time , the sister moonlets merged into one individual , spinning rock .
“ Our model suggests that the ancient Earth once hosted a serial of moons , each one formed from a different collision with the proto - Earth , ” carbon monoxide gas - author Hagai Perets said in a statement . “ It ’s probable that such moonlets were later ejected , or collided with the Earth or with each other to form cock-a-hoop Sun Myung Moon . ”
Perets says the moonlets could easily have crossed eye socket with one another , nail together , and been roll up into larger dead body . “ A farseeing series of such moonshine - moon collision could bit by bit build - up a bigger moon — the Moon we see today . ”
