I’m afraid that this is not my area of expertises but funnily enough I did come across the following you tube video about the moon a while ago which might help – I have no idea if any of what Charlie says is true though but it at least sounds possible.
Yep that video’s right – the favourite theory of how the Moon formed is that something about the size of Mars hit the Earth sometime when the solar system was still forming. The middle bits (which will have the heavy elements like iron) fused together and loads of the lighter stuff gets flung up out into space. This stuff starts orbiting around the Earth and eventually is brought together by gravity to form the Earth.
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Jen commented on :
Yep that video’s right – the favourite theory of how the Moon formed is that something about the size of Mars hit the Earth sometime when the solar system was still forming. The middle bits (which will have the heavy elements like iron) fused together and loads of the lighter stuff gets flung up out into space. This stuff starts orbiting around the Earth and eventually is brought together by gravity to form the Earth.
The podcast Astronomy Cast did an episode all about this: http://www.astronomycast.com/astronomy/episode-17-where-does-the-moon-come-from/
thunderrocks commented on :
I like charlies video its funny!