Scientists have puzzled a question for hundreds of years, How is our moon formed? Exactly?, Since the 1970s, scientists have suspected astronomy In that the Moon originated when a giant protoplanet called Theia struck Earth, however, the nature of this collision and what happened immediately following it have been debated.
Some scientists believe that the collision created a vast cloud of debris, which merged into the moon over time.
However, in a new study, researchers from Durham University claim that the giant collision immediately put the Moon into orbit around the Earth.
Study co-author Vincent Ike said: ‘This formation pathway might help explain the similarity in isotopic composition between lunar rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts and Earth’s mantle.
There may also be noticeable consequences for the thickness of the lunar crust, which will allow us to further determine the type of collision that occurred.
About 4.45 billion years ago, 150 million years following the formation of the Solar System, Earth was struck by a Mars-sized object called Theia.
The collision created the moon, but debate raged over what exactly happened during this event – and the question of why the moon and Earth are similar in composition has remained a mystery.
In the study, the researchers set out to definitively explain the moon’s origin story.
The team used open source SWIFT simulation code, running on the DiRAC Memory Intensive Service (‘COSMA’), to create the most detailed supercomputer simulation to date.
This allowed them to simulate hundreds of different impacts, varying the angle and speed of the collision as well as the masses and rotations of the two colliding objects.
While previous studies used low-resolution simulations, the additional computational power revealed important new aspects.
For example, high-resolution simulations produced only a moon-like moon, and additional details showed how its outer layers were richer in material that originated from Earth.
If a large portion of the moon formed immediately following the giant impact, it might mean that less material became molten during formation than previously thought, according to the researchers.
Depending on how this molten rock solidifies, these theories should predict the various internal structures of the Moon.