Moon Formation: Another Hypotheses of Giant Impact - Moon Formation: Hit-and-run Giant Impact Scenario: The...

Moon Formation: Another Hypotheses of Giant Impact - Moon Formation: Hit-and-run Giant Impact Scenario: The hypothesis of giant impact suggests that the Moon was created from material ejected by a collision between the young Earth and a body the size of Mars named Theia 4.5 billion years ago. This scenario is widely accepted, but analyses of lunar samples have shown a major problem with this theory: the Moon should be composed mainly of Theia materials. The elements of the Moon and the Earth show remarkable similarities. Researchers explored a new collision geometry, changing the impact configuration. Their simulation also integrates a more energetic impact (called “hit and run”) that could tear more matter from Earth and make the pre-lunar debris disc dominate by terrestrial matter - The giant-impact hypothesis, sometimes called the Big Splash, or the Theia Impact suggests that the Moon formed out of the debris left over from a collision between Earth and a body of the size of Mars, approximately 4.5 billion years ago - Unfortunately, samples taken from the Earth and from the Moon show that the ratio of the Earth's and the Moon's oxygen isotopes is almost identical. And a fresh analysis of lunar samples taken by the Apollo missions show that the Moon and the Earth share a very similar isotope ratio of the metal titanium... All which should not be the case, if the Big Splat theory is correct. Researchers (A.Reufer et al.) have proposed a variation on the Big Splat. They have suggested that instead of a collision with a slow-moving body like Theia, a much larger and fast-moving body hit the earth a glancing blow. Unlike Theia - which would have been largely sacrificed in the creation of our Moon - this new body would have lost only a small amount of material in the collision. After smacking the Earth, the pla