A Cosmic Mystery Revealed…a Giant Collision Led To The Formation Of The Moon 4.5 Billion Years Ago

New computer models developed by researchers from Imperial College London confirmed that this catastrophic event was the decisive moment in the formation of our planet and its moon.

“The giant impact not only created the Moon, it set off a whole chain of consequences that determined the Earth’s evolution,” said astrophysicist Jacob Kegrais, who studies the early solar system using supercomputer simulations.

He continued: “Computer models based on the fluid dynamics method of smooth particles allow scientists to recreate the early stages of planetary formation.”

“We describe the system with millions of particles, each representing a piece of matter,” Kegrais explained. “The supercomputer simulates how they move and interact under the influence of gravity and pressure.”

He said: “These simulations show that without the giant impact, it is inexplicable how so much material could have been flung into orbit to form the Moon. Every year, the Moon moves away from the Earth by about 3.8 centimetres. By tracking this movement, researchers can reconstruct the history of its orbit and determine how fast the Earth rotated shortly after the collision. In addition, the surface of the Moon has been practically unchanged over billions of years, unlike Earth, where wind, water and tectonic processes remove everything. This makes the Moon a “repository” of the system’s early history. “Solar”.

“This is a huge puzzle with many pieces,” Kegrais concluded. “To definitively understand how the Moon originated, we need to improve models and continue studying the Earth-Moon system.”

Source: Gazeta