New research provokes more questions about the origin of the moon
(PhysOrg.com) -- It’s beguiled watchers since before records were kept, and today still, it fills poets with pensive musings, and scientists with enchanting questions. Where did the moon come from, and how did it get there? The prevailing view is that a planet named Theia entered out solar system and banged into our planet with sufficient force to push some of the molten material from our planet into orbit. Over time, that material coalesced to form the moon. Now, new research from geophysical scientist Junjun Zhang and colleagues, suggests that such thinking might be wrong. In their paper published in Nature Geoscience, they find that in comparing titanium isotopes from both the moon and the Earth, that the match is too close to support the theory that the moon could have been made partly of material from another planet.