Was the Moon Once Powered by a Dynamo Core? MIT Research Says "Yes"

reply to post by Phage


Is it possible that the collision was with a water world with a sediment core ?

Genuine question...just putting it out there.

Cosmic..

what if the opposite is true and the earth broke off from what was the moon?
just thinking it could have been massive and a planetoid for all we know if there is proof it was here before the earth like another poster claims.

reply to post by Cosmic4life

Maybe...if you could describe how such a planet could form or exist.

reply to post by Phage


Semantics does not negate my point. My point is, is that all the current major theories on the origin of the Moon have major flaws.

reply to post by Phage


Hmm i have no idea how these things are formed..just an amateur with an interest.

I was thinking a collision with something like Europa.

Cosmic..

I can't say anything about this except OH MY GOD.

Can you answer this? www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Chewingonmushrooms
I don't know much about cosmology, but what is the current accepted theory on how the moon formed?

This is more of an astronomy matter; cosmology is more like "philosophy" of the universe.

When I took astronomy classes, we pretty much already knew that the moon is a "dead" object, meaning that it was once molten and experienced differentiation which lead to some magnetic field. The best theory was that some large celestial object collided with the early Earth and the ejected material formed into the moon.

Not trying to take away from divine placement of our moon in it's orbit, but the Moon actually is moving away from the Earth at a rate of approximately 3.8 cm per year. Source

Now, the whole dynamo thing is extremely interesting, and merits a lot more investigation, and I for one am very interested in what they find.

TheBorg

Maybe this is a dumb question. If there was an impact that created Earth and Moon would that mean there would be more debris in the Lagrange points as opposed to a Moon capture?

Also, if the Moon had a magnetic field could that interact with the Earth's magnetic field to make the capture theory evolve to a circular orbit through the interaction of the magnetic fields on each orbit?

reply to post by cloudyday


The impact did not create the Earth and Moon. The Earth already existed and was struck by a planet sized body.

Lagrange points are very distant from Earth. It is thought that the debris from the collision remained in orbit around the Earth and eventually coalesced to form the Moon.

The Earth's magnetic field is far too weak to have any effect on anything of significant mass. It's gravitational force is far greater.

Here are two other flaws in the Major Impact theory: 1) According to the astrophysicist who modeled the theory, the iron core that the Moon once had fell to Earth after the impact which is why the Moon is so iron deficient. However, if the core fell to Earth, the ejecta from the impact had to have created another large core. A core large enough to have enough gravity and be hot enough to collect all the ejecta and form a new Moon. But according to all density and seismic data, if the Moon has a core it is a small one. How did a small core have enough gravity and heat to pull enough ejecta toward itself to form a planetoid one-quarter the size of the Earth?
2) Where did all the extra ejecta go? There is no evidence anywhere near the orbit of the Moon nor of the Earth of an ancient ejecta field. If anyone says, well it just disappeared... that's not science.

reply to post by WeekendWarrior


Moons been pelted by asteroids since its birth, stands to reason it got hit by things older than it, enough that that could explain that away.

reply to post by Phage

The impact did not create the Earth and Moon. The Earth already existed and was struck by a planet sized body

If this is a credible theory, why is there no evidence of it. I.e. some larger celestial body in an orbit near or in our solar system? Surely other (larger) planets would form of barrier in a way that they too would have some form of impact evidence and possibly their own moons like ours? And if they did get in the way (so to speak) why would some of the larger planets have larger moons than our own?

I'm not posing an argument, just asking a question......cheers.

reply to post by 1questioner

The debris from the impact would not have consisted of a large amount of iron because most of it would have "stuck" to Earth but there would have been some. The differentiation does not occur during the initial formation, but afterwards. Most of what little iron was there would have migrated to the core of the new Moon.

Planetary differentiation, therefore, refers to the processes that cause an essentially homogeneous accreted body that is made up of primordial solar material to become separated into layers having different chemical and/or physical properties. If a planetary body is large enough it will develop a core, mantle and crust each of which may be further subdivided. Each layer in the Earth has its own set of subdivisions, for example: upper, middle and lower crust.

wapi.isu.edu...
The Moon is large enough to have developed an iron core, just as the Earth did.

Any "extra" debris would have been drawn into the newly forming Moon, the Earth, or been perturbed out of orbit by the influence of the Moon and other planets.

reply to post by CaptainBeno

The body which struck Earth and resulted in the formation of the Moon was entirely destroyed in the process. As was Earth, for the most part. It was returned to an almost completely molten state, a reboot in its early development. This is why there is no "scar" of the event.

reply to post by 1questioner


I think this is incorrect:

1) According to the astrophysicist who modeled the theory, the iron core that the Moon once had fell to Earth after the impact which is why the Moon is so iron deficient.

The impact theory makes no such claims. The debris from the impact (the impact that obliterated the proto-planet that struck the proto-Earth, by the way) remained in an orbit around the proto-Earth, and gradually coalesced into what is now the Moon. That material, and the proto-Earth, were mostly molten for some time, from the tremendous energies involved. Gravitational forces act to shape large accumulations of matter into a spherical shape, hence the final appearance of planets and large moons...there is a mass threshold that can be searched for, online, that describes this process, and what amount of mass is "too little" to achieve the spherical shape.

2) Where did all the extra ejecta go? There is no evidence anywhere near the orbit of the Moon nor of the Earth of an ancient ejecta field. If anyone says, well it just disappeared... that's not science.

No, it didn't "just disappear"...it's here, as part of the Earth, and up there, as part of the Moon. No way to know exactly all of the dynamics and orbits of every component of the ejecta, and how they accreted; but the process can be modeled by computer...super-computers....and a reasonable approximation seen.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by 1questioner

 

The debris from the impact would not have consisted of a large amount of iron because most of it would have "stuck" to Earth but there would have been some. The differentiation does not occur during the initial formation, but afterwards. Most of what little iron was there would have migrated to the core of the new Moon.

Planetary differentiation, therefore, refers to the processes that cause an essentially homogeneous accreted body that is made up of primordial solar material to become separated into layers having different chemical and/or physical properties. If a planetary body is large enough it will develop a core, mantle and crust each of which may be further subdivided. Each layer in the Earth has its own set of subdivisions, for example: upper, middle and lower crust.

wapi.isu.edu...
The Moon is large enough to have developed an iron core, just as the Earth did.

Any "extra" debris would have been drawn into the newly forming Moon, the Earth, or been perturbed out of orbit by the influence of the Moon and other planets.

edit on 1/27/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Again, this is a nice convenient theory. However, empirical evidence such as the rings of Saturn and the asteroid belt argue against such an event happening in the case of the formation of the Moon.

reply to post by 1questioner

The rings of Saturn will not last forever nor will they form a planet. The tidal forces of the giant planet which caused the destruction of the moon which now forms the rings are too great to allow the debris to coalesce.

The asteroid belt is not orbiting a planet. There are different forces involved. The transitory gravitational effects of Jupiter prevent very large bodies from forming but Ceres is quite impressive.

Originally posted by ProudBird
reply to post by 1questioner

 

I think this is incorrect:

1) According to the astrophysicist who modeled the theory, the iron core that the Moon once had fell to Earth after the impact which is why the Moon is so iron deficient.

The impact theory makes no such claims. The debris from the impact (the impact that obliterated the proto-planet that struck the proto-Earth, by the way) remained in an orbit around the proto-Earth, and gradually coalesced into what is now the Moon. That material, and the proto-Earth, were mostly molten for some time, from the tremendous energies involved. Gravitational forces act to shape large accumulations of matter into a spherical shape, hence the final appearance of planets and large moons...there is a mass threshold that can be searched for, online, that describes this process, and what amount of mass is "too little" to achieve the spherical shape.

2) Where did all the extra ejecta go? There is no evidence anywhere near the orbit of the Moon nor of the Earth of an ancient ejecta field. If anyone says, well it just disappeared... that's not science.

No, it didn't "just disappear"...it's here, as part of the Earth, and up there, as part of the Moon. No way to know exactly all of the dynamics and orbits of every component of the ejecta, and how they accreted; but the process can be modeled by computer...super-computers....and a reasonable approximation seen.

Please watch the linked video and hear for yourself what the astrophysicist says regarding the original iron core of the Moon falling back to Earth.
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by 1questioner

She is talking about the core of the impacting planet, not the Moon.

As I said, most of the iron ended up in the Earth. But not all. That which did not was part of the material which coalesced to form the Moon.