Findings Cast Doubt On Moon Origins 233
sciencehabit writes "A new analysis of isotopes found in lunar minerals challenges the prevailing view of how Earth's nearest neighbor formed. Geochemists looked at titanium isotopes in 24 separate samples of lunar rock and soil, and found that the moon's proportion was effectively the same as Earth's and different from elsewhere in the solar system. This contradicts the so-called Giant Impact Hypothesis, which posits that Earth collided with a hypothetical, Mars-sized planet called Theia early in its existence, and the resulting smash-up produced a disc of magma orbiting our planet that later coalesced to form the moon."
In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
That's no moon!
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That's no moon!
What, no goatse link either?
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That's no moon!
Oh, it's a moon alright, but it's rented. Payments are terrible, too. Don't think I can keep them up much longer. Gonna be a dark sky when it gets repo'd.
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
Pink Floyd owns the rights to the Dark Side of the Moon.
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
OT14 teaches us that "The Moon" was actually put here to hold any thetans left over after the volcanoes became full.
Just sayin'.
Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:5, Insightful)
We have the technology to find and look very deep or far where isotopes are or where the fartest solar system is. But yet, I can't find my damn keys in my house sometimes.
If technology isn't solving your problem, you aren't using enough: Put an RFID tag on your key chain. While you are at it, you should tag the TV remote too.
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:4, Insightful)
I started to mod this insightful. Then, I thought "Wow, that's so cool I'm going to go actually buy that system and put chips in all my stuff". Then I did the research and realized it's $400 (source: http://www.dpl-surveillance-equipment.com/1000066086.html [dpl-survei...ipment.com]) .
I'll just keep putting the keys on my nightstand and the remote on the end table.
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I started to mod this insightful. Then, I thought "Wow, that's so cool I'm going to go actually buy that system and put chips in all my stuff". Then I did the research and realized it's $400 (source: http://www.dpl-surveillance-equipment.com/1000066086.html [dpl-survei...ipment.com]) . I'll just keep putting the keys on my nightstand and the remote on the end table.
Either that or you could spend peanuts on one of those silly little whistle-sensitive beeping keyrings that have been around for at least 20 years. :-)
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Dropping $30 on one of these [amazon.com] for my girlfriend has more than paid itself off in saved time searching. For myself, yes I use the "put it in the same place" method. The remote on the other hand is left in the hands of teens and got lost to the point of replacement - Even after we moved...
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, you moved, and the teens *still* managed to find you and get their hands on the remote?
Re:Where is it ? (my keys) (Score:5, Funny)
I tried this but then I lost the RFID detector. Once I found it again, I tagged it and now have an RFID Detector Detector. And just to make sure that isn't lost, I tagged that device and have an RFID Detector Detector Detector. What was I looking for again?
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That's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Wait, I think I'm in the wrong thread...
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Common sense. :P
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should have written....we have all these technologies....yet we still have physical keys?
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Yeah, but do you really want an electronic padlock?
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I am translating from memory, so forgive me if I am wrong somewhere...
"A little cronopius was looking for the key of the main door in his bed table, his bed table in his dormroom, his dormroom in his house. Here the cronopius did have to stop, since he could not get out of his house without the main door keys".
Julio Cortázar
What are the implications? (Score:2)
So, if it wasn't a big impact, what was it? What's the next best theory?
Re:What are the implications? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What are the implications? (Score:5, Informative)
So, if it wasn't a big impact, what was it? What's the next best theory?
Well, according to TFA:
"One possibility is that a glancing blow from a passing body left Earth spinning so rapidly that it threw some of itself off into space like a shot put, forming the disk that coalesced into the moon. This would explain why the moon seems to be made entirely of Earth material. But there are problems with this model, too, such as the difficulty of explaining where all the extra angular momentum went after the moon formed, and the researchers aren't claiming to have refuted the giant impact hypothesis."
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Re:What are the implications? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What are the implications? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking this. However, now you require two planetary bodies to occupy the same orbital zone for long enough for them to form without colliding, and yet to collide later on. This is tricky, but perhaps not impossible. They might initially form in some orbital resonance (probably one of the Trojan points) and then some other body comes by and destabilizes the orbits. (I don't know if Trojan points are stable in a still-accreting-planets disk.)
Another possibility is there were two collisions: Theia itself was formed from proto-Earth in a collision, and then later caused the moon-formation event.
Re:What are the implications? (Score:5, Funny)
We should demand to see its birth certificate.
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But if P != NP, how will we ever produce the certificate in time before the next ejection?
Earth looks at Moon, &says... (Score:2)
"We are not brothers, hanger-on..."
['ruff for cartoon]
Not a contradiction (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't contradict it at all. The current version of the impactor theory pre-supposes that Theia was formed at Earth's L4 or L5 point. There, the fractional distillation effect in the solar nebula would give the same Ti isotope ratios as in Earth, since Theia would be orbiting at the same distance. Formation at L4 or L5 also gives a nicely low impact energy, agreeing with what is needed to form the moon.
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:5, Informative)
The location of Theia's formation at 4 or L5 would be close enough to earth that the accretion would of the same material. Further if Theia were at L4 it would lead earth in the orbital path, 60 degrees ahead, and would tend to preferentially sweep the protoplanetary disk, before earth's mass rendered any advantage. Any differences in ratios would be small at the time of impact.
Bear in mind that anything at the the Lagrange points must necessarily be insignificantly small relative to the earth. As soon as it stops being so, the likelihood of it staying at the Lagrange point becomes nil. I remain unconvinced that a planet could form at L4 or L5 and become large enough such that any impact would eject a mass as large as the moon. Drift should occur long before it acquired enough mass. (Earths orbit is not circular, rather it is elliptical, and as such the Lagrange points are really unstable Lagrange "areas").
Disregarding my doubts, when a body formed at L4 or L5 does drift, and impact earth, that impact would scatter its content over the surface of the earth such that we would, after all these billions of years, be hard pressed to distinguish it from earth's original composition. Similarly, the moon would be composed of the same material sources, a combination of both Theia and Earth materials.
Any subtle differences in accretion would be completely masked by impact mixing.
However, the same could be said about any body impacting the earth. The likelihood of such a body remaining intact (bottling up any difference in isotopic ratios) is virtually nil, and both earth and moon are going to be covered with the same relative ratios in any method which postulates the moon being formed from ejecta from an earth impact.
At best this finding puts to rest the long discredited "captured moon" theory.
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:5, Interesting)
The Earth's mantle is fully convective, and around 6 times the mass of the impactor's mantle,
Wait, what? Where did you get 6 times? And where did the impactor get a mantle? That number is sheer conjecture, and the existence of a mantle makes so sense until you have an impactor large enough to have a differentiated body. That hasn't been proven.
Moon's core is different from earth's [wikipedia.org] by our best guesses. But the surface accretion in the eons after any impact is going to accumulate the same combination of protoplanetary disk material and ejecta material.
We've barely scratches the surface of earth, let alone the moon. These isotope measurements are akin to determining the structure of a large building by examining a paint chip scraped off of each.
And using hind sight, doesn't ANY outcome appear to be the result of "fine tuning"? Isn't any such argument just another form of intelligent creation dogma?
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a contradiction (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I read Slashdot. I don't know what any of it means, but I do know I wouldn't read it elsewhere. :)
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Geochemists looked at titanium isotopes in 24 separate samples of lunar rock and soil, and found that the moon's proportion was effectively the same as Earth's and different from elsewhere in the solar system"
and
" This contradicts the so-called Giant Impact Hypothesis, which posits that Earth collided with a hypothetical, Mars-sized planet called Theia early in its existence, and the resulting smash-up produced a disc of magma orbiting our planet that later coalesced to form the moon."
SO discovering that the Moon's and Earths isotopes match means it could NOT have formed from a splash of magma from the earth?
This whole thing contradicts it's self. How do they know that the other body was not a twin of the earth and formed from the same disc of dust and debris? do they have samples of this other planet?
Re:Huh? (Score:4)
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Maybe he's using metric time. Or dog years. Metric dog years.
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're asserting that 40% of the Moon's mass must have come from the impactor, and thus would have a different isotope balance.
That's clear, but why would the impactor necessarily have a significantly different isotopic ratio than the Earth? Yes it theoretically had a significantly different mass, but the distance from the sun was similar. How much understanding do we have of the variation in these isotopes on other planetary bodies? We have samples from what, the Earth, the Moon, and probably asteroids (very small mass so not too surprising if their isotope ratio is very different)? Possibly Mars? That doesn't seem like a whole lot of data to base models of isotope variation on, so it seems like a weak argument to say that Theia should have had a substantially different isotopic ratio for oxygen and titanium than the Earth. It would be nice if this was discussed in the article, but it isn't (and the link to the original journal article is broken so I can't check for myself).
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Wouldn't a significant percentage of the mass of the surface of the Earth also have come from the impactor, and therefore also have had it's isotope balance altered in the same way?
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They're asserting that 40% of the Moon's mass must have come from the impactor, and thus would have a different isotope balance.
Unless the same percentage of the Earth's mass came from the impactor as that of the moon.
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Their assertion is highly suspect at best.
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I put 38 oz of cola Slurpee and 26 oz of cherry Slurpee in a 64 oz cup.
You are toying with powers you can't possibly hope to understand.
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No, it means that it probably could not have formed from a splash of magma that came mostly from Theia, which would be the case under the Giant Impact Hypothesis.
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But isn't the surface of the moon different in composition on the nearside and the "dark" side (certainly different in appearance)? And aren't all the samples from the near side?
As long as the splash of magma form the Earth was denser than that from Theia, that's the part we'd land on and collect samples, no?
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Good conclusion bad logic (or writing) (Score:5, Interesting)
Conclusion sounds good, written logic is horrible.
found that the moon's proportion was effectively the same as Earth's
This contradicts the so-called Giant Impact Hypothesis, which posits that Earth collided with a hypothetical, Mars-sized planet called Theia early in its existence, and the resulting smash-up produced a disc of magma orbiting our planet that later coalesced to form the moon.
Does not explain why that doesn't work. The summary makes it sound very likely that something "smooshed off" the earth and became the moon, because both have the same ratios. Also does a poor job of explaining the more likely alternative explanation, by not discussing it at all. Fail.
I think part of the fail is assuming:
different from elsewhere in the solar system
That means we've sampled everything in the entire solar system both now and infinitely in the past? ha ha I think not.
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They've sampled a big number of meteorites, from several parts of the Solar System. Also, they don't need to sample them over time because they know how isotopes change, and thus only need a snapshot.
The conclusion seems quite well fundamented.
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This is perhaps the key to your question: "Computer models indicate that, for the collision to remain consistent with the laws of physics, at least 40% of the magma would have had to come from Theia."
To fit the current Theia model, the isotopes of the moon should be noticeably different from Earth because moon's material would be about 40% from Theia. The chance of Theia having identical isotopes to Earth is considered an unlikely coincidence. Moon should be "polluted" with non-Earth isotopes, giving differ
Occam's Razor (Score:3, Interesting)
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Agreed but it's not as likely to get grant money or published
Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Informative)
Is there evidence to suggest that the simplest explanation (accretion disk formed the earth and the moon at roughly the same time, along with all the other rocky planets) is not the correct one?
Computer simulations have shown that the accretion disk theory is unlikely. The moon is HUGE. Compared to the size of the mother planet, it is by far the biggest in the solar system. It is also really far from the earth, nearly 400,000km. By comparison, the distance from Mars to Phobos is less than 10,000km. Most of the mass in an accretion disk should have fallen to earth, with a small amount forming a few very small moons, orbiting closely.
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*Was* a mass effect relay. D'oh! Spoiler!
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As I understand it, the mass, composition, and age of the moon are all wrong for that that theory (which was the prevailing hypothesis when I was young).
Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org]: "the co-formation of the Earth and the Moon together in the primordial accretion disk [...] does not explain the depletion of metallic iron in the Moon." It also doesn't explain the 40 million years or so difference in age betwen the Earth and the Moon.
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As I understand it, the mass, composition, and age of the moon are all wrong for that that theory (which was the prevailing hypothesis when I was young).
I remember having a poster when I was young (in the 70's) that showed how the moon formed by a lopsided Earth wobbling off a big glop of moon and having it slowly cool and spiral outward.
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I had the same (or similar) poster from National Geographic. It showed the three possible origins of the moon on one side and a highly detailed map of the moon on the other. Nice map.
FWIW- the three possible origins of the moon were: Budding from angular momentum, co-formation in the same location and capture of a rogue planetessimal from elsewhere in the solar system. If I recall correctly, budding and capture were considered long-shot ideas. Interesting that the currently prevailing theory was not o
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If they both formed from the same accreation disk, the composition of the Earth and the Moon would be different, not similar.
Re:Occam's Razor (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning is still fun. The trick is to ignore internet comments.
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Dude, I have no idea what you just typed, but pass me whatever you are toking.
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Fuck that noise, their joint is obviously laced with dust.
I am completely uninformed... but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see how this contradicts anything. If a mars sized body impacted the earth, I doubt there was much that wasn't rendered into magma and mixed together.
The moon is just a set made in Hollywood. (Score:2)
Genesis 1:16 (Score:4, Funny)
It's times like this that I'm happy to be a creationist.
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Man I love knowing that all answers to all questions boil down to the same two answers, which are: "but the times you saw one set of footprints in the sand were the times I carried you!" and "because Jeebus died for you, THAT'S why, you dirty, dirty microscope sinner!".
We still on for Wednesday's "New Research? Still Go
Re:Genesis 1:16 (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing in the verse that he mentioned actually implies that the moon is its own source of light. It is simply referred to as a luminous body. Which is is, when it's being illuminated by the sun.
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Wake me when the verse widens the scope it's addressing to "lesser, lesser lights".
For the record, I'm an Old Earth Creationist (OEC), not a Young Earth Creationist (YEC).
Some arguments against "creationism" are just too lame to not address, though.
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Oh, you can use F=m*a. It has predictive power. It tells you what will happen in certain conditions, and it tells you that quantitatively. That's what a scientific theory is. The "making of a new planet" is not a theory, not in the scientific sense. It's a hypothesis, but it's based on existing theories. Naming stuff is just to make it easier to refer to it. It'd be somewhat hard to use spherical coordinates (rectascension and declination) when referring to every object out there.
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Yes, because the bible says it does.
Oh wait, it doesn't.
But, you should probably inform these guys they are no longer allowed to call their products "lights"...
http://commercial.veluxusa.com/commercial/products/ [veluxusa.com]
Bonus points: What percentage of light from the original source, as opposed to reflected light, do you see from a standard frosted light bulb?
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Genesis and cosmetology are both creation myths.
I had a girlfriend who was a Cosmetologist. Whole house stunk of nail polish and hair dye...
=Smidge=
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Lets also not assume that God couldn't have used the methods indicated by science.
For example, science says that for earth to form etc etc etc its all theoretically possible, it just needed an insane amount of luck. Well, put God into the picture and suddenly you dont need luck. And if you dont need luck, you also dont need so much time. Take the luck and time out of it, and you have, well, Genesis 1 - in 6 days no less. How long were the days? who knows? We can say 24 hours, but its meaningless. How many t
Headline vs. Article (Score:5, Informative)
From the article: "[...]and the researchers aren't claiming to have refuted the giant impact hypothesis."
This is Real Science (Score:5, Insightful)
You know how you can tell astronomy is a real science? The people doing it are willing to look at new evidence... even if it casts doubt on their current beliefs.
If you see people in a field of "science" doing any of the above, it's not science but something else entirely.
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Anyone who's old enough to remember the first moon landing knows that. Our notions of how the solar system was formed, and in particular, how the moon was formed, have undergone drastic modification as physical evidence started coming in. When I was young, the accreted-from-the-same-cloud theory was still the prevailing one. My parents may well remember the Mars-has-canals theory.
here is an example of deniers in astronomy (Score:2)
In all scientific fields, some theories are more supported by facts than others, thus they are more likely than others.
This is also the case for astronomy.
Here is an example where those who choose to ignore mountains of facts in order to deny the most supported theories are called deniers by astronomers:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/09/im-skeptical-of-denialism/ [discovermagazine.com]
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No, that's nothing to do with astronomy. That's just a statement of religious beliefs that happens to be made by an astronomer, speaking outside of his field.
Yes, yes, I know. I'm a heretic to your religion, and that makes me a sinner and just a big meanie. Guilty.
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Are calling a religion the previous sentence "some theories are more supported by facts than others" ?
This is strange because all religions think that their beliefs don't need to be supported by facts.
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You might be surprised how many believers in a religion think the facts support their religion. A quite bright math prof once told me "you can't get away from the fact that a man came back from the dead."
Real science: when the measurements don't fit the theory, adjust the theory.
Not science: we'll just keep adjusting the measurements, always in the direction that tends to confirm our theory.
Real science: "Some of my conclusions are based on modeling. All the details of my model can be found in Appendix B.
some theories are more supported by facts (Score:2)
Do you think that "some theories are more supported by facts than other theories" ?
If yes then you have to accept the right of climate scientists to say that "some climate theories are more supported by facts than other climate theories".
The IPCC reports acknowledge that other theories could be right in the end, that is why they use the word "likely" for their predictions instead of saying "we are certain that...".
So calling the IPCC reports "religious" is clearly a mistake. No religion uses the word "likel
Working Article Link (Score:5, Informative)
The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
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I like your theory and would like to subscribe to your news letter. One thing bothers me though, where is George Soros in all of this? Did... oh god, did he fund this entire project?
The Moon is also too Wet (Score:3)
Recent re-analysis of lunar volcanic samples shows the interior of the Moon is allot wetter then we thought. Some parts of the Moon interior, at least, contain as much water as the Earth's upper mantle, far wetter than predicted by the Giant Impact Hypothesis (the water should have boiled off).
Less sophisticated analysis in the 1970s indicated the Moon is very dry (less than 50 parts per million water). But water was lost to the vacuum of space during lunar volcanic eruptions, giving a false impression the Moon was dry. New techniques detected water trapped inside fluid inclusions (bubbles) in olivine crystals, showing the interior of the moon is quite wet. Zhang at al. 2012 is one of several resent studies that calls the Giant Impact Hypothesis into question.
Hauri et al., 2011. "High Pre-Eruptive Water Contents Preserved in Lunar Melt Inclusions" [sciencemag.org] 333(6039), 213-215.
The Moon's Origin Story: (Score:2)
Oh sure, science, very clever... (Score:2)
Better headline (Score:2)
Shouldn't the headline say "Findings Cast Doubt On Current Moon Origin theories"?
Gasp! (Score:2)
o.O
Bill O'Reilly was right! We can't explain it!
Double Impact? (Score:2)
What about a double impact? The first one creates the vast majority of the moon. When the moon eventually cools enough, a second high-velocity impact kicks up Earth material which eventually lands on the moon's surface. Any samples from the moon's surface would be mostly from the second impact. The second impact would kick up more of Earth and less of itself than the first because it would be a high-speed impact.
My understanding is that a fairly low-speed impact is necessary to kick up sufficient "solid" m
Where's the kaboom? (Score:2)
I was expecting an Earth-shattering kaboom!
No one really knows (Score:2)
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The Moon is a giant alien battleship [wikipedia.org].
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_Moon_Theory [wikipedia.org]
Re:An alternate hypothesis. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:An alternate hypothesis. (Score:4, Funny)
Bah what nonsense.
The mice obviously commissioned the moon at the same time as they had the earth built.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_races_and_species_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Mice [wikipedia.org]
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Easy peasy!
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I vote ancient Reaper battle.
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Given that very few (if any) elected politicians in the U.S. are openly atheist, I'd say they don't give a fuck either way about being accountable whether they believe or not.