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Surprise! Earth and the moon aren't made of exactly the same stuff. | Space
The moon and Earth may be more different than previously thought, challenging existing models for how the moon formed , a new study finds.
Earth originated about 4.5 billion years ago, and previous research suggested that the moon arose a short time after that. For the past three decades, the prevailing explanation for the moon's origin was that it resulted from the collision of two protoplanets, or embryonic worlds. One of those was the newborn Earth, and the other was a Mars-size rock nicknamed Theia, after the mother of the moon in Greek myth.
How This Prehistoric Clam Tracked the Moon
These ancient bivalves were similar to modern clams in that their shells had an impressive growth rate—an entire layer per day. The laminae—growth bands which are similar to tree rings—grew in accordance with the weather giving researchers an unprecedented look at what a day looked like several thousand millennia ago.
But it wasn’t just weather; T. sanchezi also captured snapshots of water temperature and chemical makeup, in essence, freezing several moments in time throughout the day. Niels de Winter, a geochemist and professor at Belgium’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), told Science Alert that the bivalve offers a unique look at the past.
Lunar discovery could rewrite understanding of how the Moon was formed | Science | News |
Scientists believe the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized infant planet – known as Theia – hit Earth with a glancing blow, striking at a 45 degree angle some 4.5 billion years ago. As a result, chunks of Theia and Earth collected in Earth’s orbit to eventually form the Moon.
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In astronomical terms, synestias are extremely brief, only lasting for a couple hundred years, before they shrink rapidly, causing rock vapour to condense into liquid, which ultimately becomes the core of a planet, or in this case the Moon.
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These two tiny spacecraft will help pave the way for astronauts to return to the moon | Space
If NASA astronauts land on the moon as planned in 2024, they'll have an advantage their Apollo predecessors lacked: insights gathered by tiny robotic spacecraft that visit the moon before them.
NASA has announced the first two such projects selected to fly as part of the Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon: Lunar Flashlight and the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE).
Thanks to their diminutive size, cubesats are both easy to pack on a rocket and cheap to launch. They often ride along with larger satellites. As NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon in 2024, NASA is planning to launch the first lunar cubesats in 2021 .
Scientists find Earth and moon not identical oxygen twins -- ScienceDaily
Scientists at The University of New Mexico have found that the Earth and Moon have distinct oxygen compositions and are not identical in oxygen as previously thought according to a new study released today in Nature Geoscience .
The paper, titled Distinct oxygen isotope compositions of the Earth and Moon, may challenge the current understanding of the formation of the Moon.
Previous research led to scientists to develop the Giant Impact Hypothesis suggesting the Moon was formed from debris following a giant collision between early-Earth and a proto-planet named Theia. The Earth and Moon are geochemically similar. Samples returned from the Moon from the Apollo missions showed a near-identical composition in oxygen isotopes.
We May Have Finally Found a Chunk of Theia Buried Deep Inside The Moon
This story is known as the giant-impact hypothesis ; the Mars-sized object is called Theia; and now, for the first time, scientists believe they've found traces of Theia in the Moon.
The giant-impact hypothesis has been the favoured model for explaining the formation of the Moon for years.
"This model was capable of accounting for the then-recent observations from samples returned by the Apollo missions, which included the Moon's low iron content relative to Earth, depletion in volatiles and enrichment in refractory elements, while avoiding most of the pitfalls of previous lunar origin theories," researchers from the University of New Mexico wrote in their paper .
BERRY TALES: Look up to the beauty and wonder of our moon | Opinion | iberianet.com
The July moon rose and it was full, a Full Buck Moon, the time when tiny antlers emerge from the new bucks, and the locust were uttering under the one street light near my house and the chimney swifts were diving for mosquitos while the tree frogs sang their glorious song — it was there, all of summer condensed into one perfect night — I had a front row seat to all of this unexpected bliss.
I am not sure why this long ago bucolic thought came to mind, perhaps it was the Full Worm Moon and the hint of spring dangling throughout the woods and evident in the busy hives, but it seemed redeemable, it seemed like a nice nostalgic thought amongst the not so agreeable climate of corona fear and political fear and "all that is wrong with the world" fear.
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Starwatch: the moon and planets party till dawn https://t.co/XJBa43je6q guardianscience (from London) Sun Mar 15 21:52:03 +0000 2020
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