would this granite constitute evidence that the moon struck earth at some point?
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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The moon is hypothesized to be made of material from when Theia (hypothetically) struck Earth billions of years ago. Most of the matter became the Earth and some spun out into space and became the moon.
As someone else already commented, the leading theory since several decades (all other theories about the origin of Earth's moon fell by the wayside once we went to the moon and brought back moon rocks for analysis) is that Proto-Earth collided with a roughly Mars-sized object we're calling Theia. As a result, the material from both was mixed. Part of that mix of two (proto-)planets got ejected and formed the moon, while the rest formed the Earth (with smaller objects forming temporarily in unstable orbits and raining down as meteorites on both the Earth and the Moon).
Here's a Wikipedia article on the topic
Some podcast I was listening to was saying something to the effect that one of the reasons we have such a diverse mix of elements close enough to the surface to easily mine was thought to be due to that collision. Interesting stuff.
This is interesting. Sounds like it makes finding other intelligent beings much less likely, which is a bit sad I guess.
@Arotrios
it's the nuclear waste that propelled Moon Base Alpha into space in 1999
cooling down a bit in 24 years.
@Arotrios Isn’t that where the nazis went after WWII?
Iron Sky (2012)
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