Essay on The Origin of the Moon
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This work established that the giant impact theory was indeed promising and
that
a collision of slightly more than a Mars mass with the Earth, with the
Earth-Moon
angular momentum in the collision, would put almost 2 Moon masses of rock
into
orbit, forming a disk of material that is a necessary precursor to the
formation of
the Moon from much of this rock...
Ward (Harvard University,
Cambridge MA) pointed out that a collision with a body having at least the
mass
of Mars would be needed to give the Earth the present angular momentum of
the
Earth-Moon system, and they also pointed out that such a collision would
produce a large vapor cloud that would leave a substantial amount of
material in
orbit about the Earth, the dissipation of which could be expected to form
the
Moon...
Formation Far from Earth
According to this theory, independent formation of the earth and moon, as
in
the above theory, is assumed; but the moon is supposed to have formed at a
different place in the solar system, far from earth...
Origin of the Moon
Before the modern age of space exploration, scientists had three major
theories for the origin of the moon: fission from the earth; formation in
earth
orbit; and formation far from earth...
Then, in 1975, having studied moon
rocks
and close-up pictures of the moon, scientists proposed what has come to be
regarded as the most probable of the theories of formation, planetesimal
impact
or giant impact theory...
The catastrophic impact blasted
portions
of the earth and the planetesimal into earth orbit, where debris from the
impact
eventually coalesced to form the moon...
Planetesimal Impact Theory (Giant Impact Theory)
As the Apollo project progressed, it became noteworthy that few scientists
working on the project were changing their minds about which of these threetheories they believed was most likely correct, and each of the theories
had its
vocal advocates...
2 Mars masses, that the collision occurred
with
approximately the present angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system, and
that the impacting body was initially in an orbit not very different from
that of the
Earth...
Davis (Planetary Sciences Institute in Tucson AZ) pointed out that the
Earth, in
the course of its accumulation, would undergo some major collisions with
other
bodies that have a substantial fraction of its mass and that these
collision would
produce large vapor clouds that they believe might play a role in the
formation of
the Moon...
With this technique, we have
followed a
simulated collision (with some set of initial conditions) for many hours of
real
time, determining the amount of mass that would escape from the Earth-Moon
system, the amount of mass that would be left in orbit, as well as the
relative
amounts of rock and iron that would be in each of these different mass
fractions
