Hello people, tune in each week of 2023 for the perfect in astronomy from Astronomy Editor Dave Eicher, delivered to you by Celestron.
This week, we’ll focus on the formation of Earth’s solely pure satellite, the Moon! Once we lookup on the night time sky, it is easy to see the Moon and assume it is all the time been there. However that is not the case.
About 4.5 billion years in the past, a Mars-sized physique known as Theia catastrophically struck Earth, throwing out a hoop of fabric that ultimately accreted into the Moon. (Theia is the identify of a Greek goddess who was the mom of one other Greek goddess, Selene, the Goddess of the Moon.)
We all know this collision occurred as a result of within the Nineteen Seventies, two planetary astronomers — Invoice Hartmann and Don Davis — figured it out. They reached this conclusion largely by evaluating lunar rocks collected throughout the Apollo missions to Earth rocks. They discovered that the isotopes (completely different types of the identical component) in each rocks have been largely equivalent, indicating that they had a typical origin.
This led to what’s now known as the Big Impression Speculation, which explains a number of issues in regards to the Earth-Moon system. These embrace Earth’s spin, the Moon’s orbit, the excessive angular momentum of the system, the proof that the Moon was as soon as molten, the Moon’s small iron core, and, in fact, these isotopic similarities between Earth and Moon rocks.
If the Big Impression Speculation is true, then the following logical query is to ask: “What occurred to Theia?” Properly, you are standing on it now! Many of the Mars-sized impactor really bought absorbed into Earth. Fairly wild, proper?
For extra info on the Big Impression Speculation and the Moon’s formation, see right here: https://astronomy.com/magazine/2019/11/the-moons-violent-origin
Observe Astronomy journal, the world’s best-selling astronomy journal:
🌎 Web site: https://astronomy.com
📖 Subscribe: http://subscribe.astronomy.com
📘 Fb: https://www.facebook.com/AstronomyMagazine
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/astronomy.magazine
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/AstronomyMag
Store Celestron telescopes:
🔭 Web site: https://celestron.com
Observe Dave Eicher:
📘 Fb: https://www.facebook.com/davidjohneicher/
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/eicher.david
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/deicherstar Thumbnail picture credit score: Astronomy: Roen Kelly
