How Moon Was Formed

[paampachak]

Just watched Prehistoric Disasters documentary in Netflix, interesting one


The [b]giant impact hypothesis[/b] states that the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon"]Moon[/url] was formed out of the debris left over from a collision between the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth"]Earth[/url] and a body the size of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars"]Mars[/url], approximately 4.5 [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gya"]Gya[/url] (four and a half billion years ago). The colliding body is sometimes called [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_%28planet%29#Theia"]Theia[/url], for the mythical Greek [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_%28mythology%29"]Titan[/url] who was the mother of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selene"]Selene[/url], the goddess of the Moon.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_%28planet%29#cite_note-eapsl176-0"][1][/url][/sup][sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_%28planet%29#cite_note-wiechert-1"][2][/url][/sup]


[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giantimpact.gif"][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Giantimpact.gif/270px-Giantimpact.gif[/img][/url]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giantimpact.gif"][img]http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf7/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png[/img][/url]Artist's depiction of a collision between two planetary bodies. Such an impact between the Earth and a Mars-sized object likely formed the Moon.


[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_%28planet%29#Theia"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_%28planet%29#Theia[/url]