MessageToEagle.com - Science has yet to provide a satisfactory explanation of the origin of our closest neighbor - the Moon.
There are so many questions regarding the Moon, but perhaps two of them are most important:
Where did the moon come from, and how did it get there?
A new research based on lunar material collected by Apollo astronauts in the 1970s does not support the
widely held theory that a giant collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object gave birth to the moon 4.5
billion years ago.
In the giant-collision scenario, computer simulations suggest that the moon had two parents: Earth and a
hypothetical planetary body that scientists call “Theia.
” But a comparative analysis of titanium from the moon, Earth and meteorites, published by Junjun Zhang,
graduate student in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, and four co-authors indicates the moon’s
material came from Earth alone.
If two objects had given rise to the moon, “Just like in humans, the moon would have inherited some
of the material from the Earth and some of the material from the impactor, approximately half and half,” said
Nicolas Dauphas, associate professor in geophysical sciences at UChicago, and co-author of the study,
which appears in the March 25 edition of Nature Geoscience.
“What we found is that the child does not look any different compared to the Earth,” Dauphas said.
“It’s a child with only one parent, as far as we can tell.”
Formation of the Moon. Five hours after collision. Painting by William K. Hartmann based on computer simulation.
The researchers selected titanium for their study because the element is highly
refractory and titanium isotopes — forms of titanium that contain only slight
subatomic variations.
This means that titanium tends to remain in a solid or molten state rather than becoming a gas
when exposed to tremendous heat. The resistance of titanium isotopes to vaporization makes it less likely
that they would become incorporated by the Earth and the developing moon in equal amounts.
Titanium also contains different isotopic signatures forged in countless stellar explosions that occurred
before the sun’s birth. These explosions flung subtly different titanium isotopes into interstellar space.
Different objects in the newly forming solar system gobbled up those isotopes in different ways through
collisions, leaving clues that let scientists infer where the solar materials including the moon came from.
Credits: William K. Hartmann
“When we look at different bodies, different asteroids, there are different isotopic signatures. It’s like
their different DNAs,” Dauphas said.
However, oxygen isotopic compositions have been found to be identical between terrestrial and lunar samples,
which is inconsistent with numerical models estimating that more than 40% of the Moon-forming disk material was
derived from Theia.
Solving the conundrum of the moon’s origin probably will prove challenging because all of the alternative scenarios
for the moon’s formation have drawbacks.
An old idea, long abandoned, is that the moon arose via fission from a molten, rapidly rotating Earth following a
giant impact. This idea explains the similarity between Earth and moon, but how such a large, concentrated mass
could spin fast enough to split in two remains problematical.
Another scenario suggests that Earth collided with an icy body lacking entirely in titanium. There are no bodies
made purely of ice in the solar system, however.
“They would always have a significant fraction of solid material, so you would still expect the object to deliver
some titanium,” Dauphas said.
It’s also possible that Theia had the same composition as Earth. This is unlikely, however, because of the widely
accepted view that the Earth incorporated material over tens of millions of years in collisions with smaller bodies
that flew in from different regions of the developing solar system.
“We thought we knew what the moon was made of and how it formed, but even 40 years after Apollo, there is still
a lot of science to do with those samples that are in curatorial facilities at NASA,” Dauphas said.
Sagittarius B2(N) Cloud - Precursor To Life In The Universe
A few years ago, astronomers directed their telescopes toward the galactic center and the dust cloud Sagittarius B2, located less than 400 light years from the galactic center and some 25,000 light-years from Earth.
"Clouds like this one are the raw material for new stars and planets. We know that complex chemistry builds prebiotic molecules in such
clouds long before the stars and planets are formed...."
Black Holes With No 'Table Manners' Eat Two Courses At Once!
It is still unknown how the supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centres accrete gas and grow.
Researchers from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia have investigated how some black holes got so big so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.
Mercury Surprises Scientists
On March 17, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) completed its one-year primary mission, orbiting Mercury, capturing nearly 100,000 images, and recording data
that reveals new information about the planet's core, topography, and the mysterious radar bright material in the permanently shadowed areas near the poles.
Living Earth Simulator - Supercomputer Predicting The Future
In Douglas Adams book the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we encounter a machine called Deep Thought. It is the most powerful computer ever built. Deep Thought is capable of answering questions
concerning life, the Universe, and simply everything. Now scientists are planning to create a similar machine. It is called the Living Earth Simulator (LES).
Warp-Speed Planets Are Some Of The Fastest Objects In The Milky Way
Warped planets are some of the fastest objects in the Milky Way and they zoom through space near the speed of light.
Some years ago astronomers were astonished when they they found the first runaway star flying out of our Galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour.
The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets?
Though the universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the
course of modern astronomy. And, at least one famous astronomer of the time lamented that the discovery had shattered his world view.
Bright Star In The Constellation Lyra Is Cooler Than The Human Body
The coldest class of stars have temperatures as cool as the human body.
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success.
When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see.
Thermonuclear Burning In A Neutron Star Detected For The First Time!
It's a very important discovery!
For the first time, an international team of scientists have detected all phases of thermonuclear burning in a
neutron star, located close to the center of the galaxy in the globular cluster Terzan 5.
Astronomical Mystery - Tremendous Explosion And Appearance Of Odd Rings
Twenty five years ago, on 1987 February 23, the brightest supernova of modern times was observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The collision occurred at speeds near 60 million kilometers per hour and shock-heats the ring material causing it to glow.
Over time, astronomers have watched and waited for the expanding debris from this tremendous stellar explosion to crash into previously expelled material...
The "Cloaked" Star Was Difficult To Find
An object obscured by dust, and buried in a two-star system enshrouded by dense gas, is not easy to find.
A "cloaked" star was discovered after it ate a little of its neighbor. The meal must have given the star a bit of indigestion, because it
"burped" with a blast of high-energy radiation, which gave it away.
Powerful Jet Pointing Directly At Earth
They are among the most fascinating cosmic phenomena. Astronomers know them as blazars and each of them harbors a supermassive black hole and jets emanating
in opposite directions from near its poles. These sources are unique evidence of the most extreme speeds and energies known in the extreme Universe...
MessageToEagle.com - Science has yet to provide a satisfactory explanation of the origin of our closest neighbor - the Moon.
A few years ago, astronomers directed their telescopes toward the galactic center and the dust cloud Sagittarius B2, located less than 400 light years from the galactic center and some 25,000 light-years from Earth.
"Clouds like this one are the raw material for new stars and planets. We know that complex chemistry builds prebiotic molecules in such
clouds long before the stars and planets are formed...."
It is still unknown how the supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centres accrete gas and grow.
Researchers from the University of Leicester (UK) and Monash University in Australia have investigated how some black holes got so big so fast that they are billions of times heavier than the sun.
On March 17, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) completed its one-year primary mission, orbiting Mercury, capturing nearly 100,000 images, and recording data
that reveals new information about the planet's core, topography, and the mysterious radar bright material in the permanently shadowed areas near the poles.
In Douglas Adams book the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we encounter a machine called Deep Thought. It is the most powerful computer ever built. Deep Thought is capable of answering questions
concerning life, the Universe, and simply everything. Now scientists are planning to create a similar machine. It is called the Living Earth Simulator (LES).
Warped planets are some of the fastest objects in the Milky Way and they zoom through space near the speed of light.
Some years ago astronomers were astonished when they they found the first runaway star flying out of our Galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour.
The discovery intrigued theorists, who wondered: If a star can get tossed outward at such an extreme velocity, could the same thing happen to planets?
Though the universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the
course of modern astronomy. And, at least one famous astronomer of the time lamented that the discovery had shattered his world view.
The coldest class of stars have temperatures as cool as the human body.
Astronomers hunted these dark orbs, termed Y dwarfs, for more than a decade without success.
When viewed with a visible-light telescope, they are nearly impossible to see.
It's a very important discovery!
For the first time, an international team of scientists have detected all phases of thermonuclear burning in a
neutron star, located close to the center of the galaxy in the globular cluster Terzan 5.
Twenty five years ago, on 1987 February 23, the brightest supernova of modern times was observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
An object obscured by dust, and buried in a two-star system enshrouded by dense gas, is not easy to find.
They are among the most fascinating cosmic phenomena. Astronomers know them as blazars and each of them harbors a supermassive black hole and jets emanating
in opposite directions from near its poles. These sources are unique evidence of the most extreme speeds and energies known in the extreme Universe...