The explanation about the formation of our natural satellite, the Moon, about 4.5 billion years ago, has resisted the scientific community. Fundamentally, there are two theories that coincide in the collision of a large object called Theia. Now, a new investigation gives weight to one of them: that the impact of Theia and the proto-Earth caused that part of both were pulverized and ended up expanding and finally forming the Moon.
The researchers, from Harvard and Washington Universities in St. Louis (USA), proposed that the impact of these objects was so violent that the Earth’s mantle and Theia vaporized and mixed to form a dense atmosphere of vapor. and molten mass (creating a supercritical fluid) that ended up expanding and crystallizing in the satellite we know today. This would explain why the isotopic composition is so similar to that of the Earth.
And it is that the scientists examined 7 samples of lunar rock from different lunar missions (such as the meteorite of Guareña -Spain-) and compared their proportions of potassium isotopes with those of 8 terrestrial rocks of the Earth’s mantle, discovering that the rocks of the Moon was enriched with about 0.4 parts per thousand in the heaviest potassium isotope, potassium-41.
Their calculations support the theory that the impact that created the Moon was so colossal that it caused both bodies to vaporize when they collided, creating a huge disk of supercritical fluid from which our satellite was born.
We are getting closer and closer to unraveling all the mysteries about its origin and evolution and the analysis of new more specific samples taken directly from the Moon could be the key.
The study has been published in the journal Nature.
