According to a news study, the moon would have formed in just a few hours and not in several years as scientists imagined until now. The works of researchers of at NASA and the University of Durham (United Kingdom) were published this Tuesday in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Moon was formed after a collision between the planet Theia and Earthabout 4.5 billion years ago, recalls the HuffPost. So far, the most tangible hypothesis has been that our satellite had taken several months or even years to form by the agglomeration of debris from this collision.
New samples soon brought back by NASA
But the composition of the lunar rocks brought back by the various Apollo missions does not coincide with this theory. If the formation of the Moon had taken years, it should consist largely of debris from Theia. However, the analyzes reveal a composition largely similar to the Earth.
The authors of the study therefore formulated the hypothesis of a lunar formation in just a few hours. Running simulations of this scenario, they discovered that the satellite’s composition would be 60% terrestrial, a figure much closer to the results found in the samples.
If their theory holds water, it still needs to be backed up by new work. Now, the goal is to bring back new lunar samples to continue research and finally confirm this hypothesis. This is one of the objectives of the Artemis mission back to the Moon, which is slow to start.