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Artist's depiction of a collision between two planetary bodies. Such an impact between Earth and a Mars-sized object likely formed the Moon.. The giant-impact hypothesis, sometimes called the Theia Impact, is an astrogeology hypothesis for the formation of the Moon first proposed in 1946 by Canadian geologist Reginald Daly.
The Moon's heavily cratered far-side. The origin of the Moon is usually explained by a Mars-sized body striking the Earth, creating a debris ring that eventually collected into a single natural satellite, the Moon, but there are a number of variations on this giant-impact hypothesis, as well as alternative explanations, and research continues into how the Moon came to be formed.
The Earth and its Moon are one example of this configuration. Today, the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth; one of its revolutions around the Earth (currently about 29 days) is equal to one of its rotations about its axis, so it always shows one face to the Earth. The Moon will continue to recede from Earth, and Earth's spin will continue to ...
Theia, an ancient planet, collided with Earth to form the moon, scientists believe. A new study suggests Theia could have also formed mysterious blobs called large low-velocity provinces, or LLVPs.
The Moon formed after a collision 4.5 billion years ago between the young Earth and a Mars-sized object, called Theia - but what happened next?
After just a few thousand years—recent models reveal this surprisingly short period—they coalesced into a spherical shape that continued orbiting Earth. The early moon rock was so hot that it ...
The Earth and Moon formed at the same time when the protoplanetary disk accreted; The Theia-impact scenario described above; The lunar rock samples retrieved by Apollo astronauts were found to be very similar in composition to Earth's crust, and so were likely removed from Earth in some violent event. [14] [18] [19]
The Earth and the Moon were long thought to be virtually identical in composition. Now we know they are not.