The mystery of the moon's formation may have been solved. - NBCNewsMACH
. However, a shortcoming with such models is that these scenarios require unlikely impact conditions, study lead author Natsuki Hosono, a planetary scientist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama, told Space.com.To address this puzzle, Hosono's team now suggest that a large fraction of material from Earth could have reached orbit to help form the moon if Earth was partially molten at the time of the giant impact.
The researchers developed computer models simulating Earth covered with an ocean of magma, which most models of the planet's formation suggest the planet had soon after its birth. They next analyzed what happened when a Mars-size rock about a tenth of Earth's mass hit this molten protoplanet. The scientists discovered that even a glancing blow from Theia could knock more than 70 percent of the moon-forming debris out of Earth's magma ocean, since molten rock was easier to blast off Earth than solid material. These findings could help explain the compositional similarities between the moon and Earth while also explaining details such as their rates of rotation, they said.
"Prior work on lunar formation basically ignored the effect of the magma ocean," Hosono told Space.com."Our research concluded that the magma ocean is one of the most important things for the moon-forming giant impact." The new model suggests the amount of debris from an impact off a molten Earth was comparable to the current mass of the moon. However, prior work suggested that in order to build the moon, the giant impact first needed to generate an amount of debris equal to about three to four times the moon's mass, Hosono said.
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