For decades, scientists have been debating how would it be if a piece of Earth broke down and shaped our Moon about 4.5 billion years ago.
Now, new chemical evidence directs science to the theory that events were actually much more turbulent than we had imagined. Scientists describe the impact that “freed” the Moon using the metaphor “hammer struck a melon.”
Science has established the theory that the Moon was once part of the Earth before it was cut off and sent into orbit, but the exact circumstances in which it happened were still unclear. So far, the popular theory is that the object of size of Mars (called by scientists Theia) hits the forming Earth, about 20 to 100 million years before the Solar System was formed. But chemical analysis of lunar samples brought back to Earth by the Apollo missions showed that the Earth and Moon rock are almost identical chemically.
Astrophysicist Lauren Grass commend on the new hypothesis: “The collision that formed the Moon was not a low-energy at all. On the contrary, the impact was extremely powerful and has pulverized most of the Earth and the other body, turning them literally into a evaporation. From this collision, the Earth and the other cosmic body mingle together in a giant, very dense “atmosphere.” This atmosphere has cooled and condensed in what we now have as our Planet and its companion. “