Scientists believe that the satellite could have arisen after a big collision between Earth and another planet called Theia very similar composition.
The Moon may have arisen from the collision between Earth and another object very similar to the composition of our planet. A new paper published in the journal Nature could help understand the origin of the Moon, an issue that worries scientists.
The theory says the great impact that the Earth collided with another planet of similar size Mars, known as Theia. A violent upheaval caused our planet disappear for a few hours and a small part was ejected and was mixed with the remains of Theia, turned into molten rock after the coup. The result was the moon.
Most of the numerical simulations predict that in this colossal impact, most of the material that gave birth to the Moon had to come of itself “impactor” and not from Earth . But rock samples collected by the Apollo moon mission reveal that its composition is similar to that of Earth’s mantle, which represents a serious challenge to the model of formation of the Moon, taking into account also other stellar bodies in the solar system have different compositions.
The study led by Alessandra Battisti Mastrobuono-Israel Institute of Technology simulated collisions between protoplanets and compared the composition of each planet who overcame the impact with his latest “impactor” giant . The results revealed that most of the simulations presented different compositions, but about 20% of cases (up to 40% even) had similar compositions.
This might be the case of the Earth and the planet with which it collided. Thus, the presence of such isotopes, such as oxygen on our planet and satellite have explanation. “A large fraction of pairs planet-impactor have nearly identical compositions,” the authors stated in their study. The researchers also clarified that the similarity in composition between Earth and the Moon could be a natural result of a giant impact.
In the scientific publication there are also two other items that provide evidence for the theory that after the giant impact that formed the Moon as the Earth was added a layer of material, but not at its core and well formed therein.
The analysis of lunar rocks made of independently by the team of Thomas Kruijer University of Münster (Germany) and Mathieu Touboul at the University of Maryland showed that recent measurements of tungsten isotopes from Earth and Moon showed differences in composition and provided information about the history of the system consisting of our planet and its satellite that can affect training models of the Moon.
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