Simon Locke will try to change your mind about the moon. He is a graduate of the Harvard Department of the Earth and Planetary Sciences, as well as the lead author of the study, which assumes that the Moon came from a massive ponchikobrazny cloud of evaporated rock.
It is commonly believed that in the past, an object the size of Mars collided with our proto-Earth, because of which a decent amount of material that formed the Moon went into orbit. This model is about 20 years old. But Locke thinks she is wrong.
He says that in such a scenario it is difficult to obtain sufficient mass in orbit and the collision must be specific and practically unreal. His model explains many nuances and can match the pattern of the lunar composition.
Locke's tests showed that the isotopic trace for the Earth and the Moon is almost identical, which means they should have come from one source. But canonical theory suggests that the moon was formed mainly from the remnants of a single body.
Questions arise about differences between objects. The moon is endowed with fewer volatile elements, such as potassium, sodium, and copper, which are considered common on Earth. Locke's scenario begins with a massive collision. But in this version we get not a disk made of rocky material, but a “synestia” (from the Greek “together”). This is a massive, ponchikoobrazny cloud of vaporized rock. The formation was supposed to be huge, about 10 times the size of the Earth, because when this amount of energy collides, about 10% of the earth’s rock would evaporate, and the rest would be liquid.
The process is very different from the usual theory. It all starts with a “seed” - a small amount of liquid rock gathering near the center of the ponchikoobraznoy structure. As it cools, the evaporating rock condenses, and the rain reaches the center of the synestia. Some part falls on the moon, and she begins to grow.
The rain rate should be 10 times higher than hurricanes on Earth. Over time, the structure shrinks and the Moon appears from the steam. As a result, all the synesthesia condenses and the habitual rotating ball of liquid rock, the Earth, remains. The process is carried out extremely quickly, so that the Moon comes out of synestia in a few decades, and the Earth is formed after 1000 years.
Locke’s theory also tries to explain some of the differences. If the Moon and the Earth emerged from a single cloud of vaporized rock, then they have similar isotopic imprints. But the absence of volatile elements on the moon is explained by the fact that it appeared surrounded by dozens of atmospheres of steam at a temperature of 4000-6000 degrees Fahrenheit. Locke admits that his model seems unusual, because no one is used to thinking about forming satellites from another body in this way. Work is still at the preliminary screening stage, and questions still arise. For example, when the moon is in a pair, what does she do with it? Is there a hesitation or reaction? Does the steam flow through the moon? Locke plans to find answers and test the theory on computer models.
