Origin of the Moon : History of Our Destiny
We conquered the moon already. But this is surely not the closing chapter of this journey. Sooner or later we had to leave this planet anyway. Scientists are planning to go to Mars within couple of years. But the moon could be our ultimate home.
“To make the Moon our future, we have to know it’s past in the first place.”
Our Home, the Earth was circling the Sun with 19 more rocky protoplanets in the race of domination. We’re talking about the time of 4.5 billion years past. Our Earth was moonless then. So how did the moon came into action? When the moon became Earth’s companion? How it was created by?
As a part of the Apollo-11 mission, we got rock samples from the Moon to research on. According to geochemists, these rocks share some details exactly like our Earth. Because of having similarities between the Earth and the Moon, it’s believed that the Moon was created from the Earth or in the Earth. Let’s dive into every possible explanation that we’ve come to know by now.
Giant Impact Hypothesis
Giant Impact Hypothesis has remained the most favored concept behind the origin of the moon. It’s also called Big Splash sometimes. This event took place right after 80 million years after the formation of the Earth.
A mars-sized planet named Theia hit the Earth and teared off Earth’s outer layers. Twenty percent of the original mass of Theia ended up as an orbiting ring of debris around the Earth. Half of this matter shaped as our Moon later.
From such a collision, our Earth gained angular momentum and mass that gave meaning to the behavior and atmosphere of the planet.
Georeactor Hypothesis
The Giant Impact Hypothesis has some complications on its own. As per the Giant Impact hypothesis, our Moon was formed because of a collision with a mars-sized planet. But the planet that hit the Earth, Theia’s materials aren’t similar to the Earth’s materials by any mean. As we get to know from Lunar samples, Earth and Moon share identical details. That’s why scientists came up with another mind-blowing concept, Georeactor Hypothesis.
In the early days of our Earth, Uranium was available everywhere within the planet. According to the Georeactor hypothesis, Uranium became so concentrated under the Earth’s surface via centrifugal force. This resulted a giant underground explosion. Materials that ejected from this explosion slowly formed our Moon. Under this theory, the reason of similarities between the Earth and the Moon is summed up.
Synestia Hypothesis
The Georeactor Hypothesis doesn’t feel convincing to everyone as many doubt that Uranium could be that powerful enough to make such a huge blowout. There comes another theory, Synestia Hypothesis. This theory could be called a part of earlier explained, Giant Impact Hypothesis. Synestia provides a new way to solve the question of the origin of the Moon.
According to Synestia Hypothesis, Earth was hit so hard that it was entirely pulverized into a surface of liquid rock. This state is called Synestia. It vaporized the surface and the water. All the gases were mixed within a few hours following the event.
The moon started growing up from magma rain that occured because of rock vapor. This theory is a proof of the Moon being originated inside the Earth, when it was at Synestia stage. Though Synestia suggests a compelling solution to the origin of the Moon, it’s still unproven.
Which theory is the most convincing one? Which gives us the closest insight of the real incident? We don’t know exactly by now. By the time passes, we will get to know the authentic information.
Vastly inspired from melodysheep’s video.
