how was the moon made?

Answer 1

The inclination of the Moon's orbit makes it implausible that the Moon formed along with the Earth or was captured later; its origin is the subject of some scientific debate.

Early speculation proposed that the Moon broke off from the Earth's crust due to centrifugal force, leaving an ocean basin (presumed to be the Pacific Ocean) behind as a scar. This concept requires too great an initial spin of the Earth and the presumption of a Pacific origin is not compatible with the geological standard model, the theory of plate tectonics. Others speculated the Moon formed elsewhere and was captured into Earth's orbit. Two of the other theories include the coformation or condensation theory and the impact theory, which speculates that the Moon formed from the debris that resulted from a collision between the early Earth and a planetesimal.


The Moon, as seen in X-ray light.
The Moon during EarthshineThe coformation or condensation hypothesis posits that the Earth and the Moon formed together at about the same time from the primordial accretion disk, the Moon forming from material surrounding the coalescing proto-Earth, similar to the way the planets formed around the Sun. Some suggest that this hypothesis fails to adequately explain the depletion of iron in the Moon.

Recently, the giant impact hypothesis has been considered a more viable scientific hypothesis for the moon's origin than the coformation or condensation hypothesis. The Giant Impact hypothesis holds that the Moon formed from the ejecta resulting from a collision between a very early, semi-molten Earth and a planet-like object the size of Mars, which has been referred to as Theia or Orpheus. The material ejected from this impact would have gathered in orbit around Earth and formed the Moon. This hypothesis is bolstered by two main observations: First, the composition of the Moon resembles that of Earth's crust, though it has relatively few heavy elements that would have been present if it formed by itself out of the same material from which Earth formed. Second, through radiometric dating, it has been determined that the Moon's crust formed between 20 and 30 million years after that of Earth, despite its smallness and associated larger loss of internal heat, although it has been suggested that this hypothesis does not adequately address the abundance of volatile elements in the moon.

At that time the Moon was much closer to the Earth and strong tidal forces deformed the once molten sphere into an ellipsoid, with the major axis pointed towards Earth. When the Moon started to cool a solid crust was formed along its surface, but its molten interior remained displaced in the direction of the Earth. Due to this effect, the crust on the near side was much thinner than on the far side. Especially during the late heavy bombardment, around 3.8 to 4 billion years ago, many large meteorites were able to penetrate the thin crust of the near side but only very few could do so on the far side. Where the crust was perforated the hot lavas from the interior oozed out and spread over the surface, only to cool later into the maria (or seas) as we know them today. This explains the lack of maria on the far side.

The geological epochs of the Moon are defined based on the dating of various significant impact events in the Moon's history. The period of the late heavy bombardment is determined by analysis of craters and Moon rocks. In 2005, a team of scientists from Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland measured the Moon's age at 4527 ± 10 million years, which would imply that it was formed only 30 to 50 million years after the origin of the solar system.

Answer 2

The Moon is a body similar to the Earth in many ways. The theories of its origin are many and varied: the moon was a piece spun off from the earth, possibly from the Pacific Ocean basin floor, which subsequently caused the continental drift; the Earth had captured a large, perfectly spherical asteroid or meteorite; rings of orbiting materials around the Earth accreted into a moon. The moon is now most widely believed to have formed during a collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized planet in the early period of the Solar System

Answer 3

The moon has almost no heavy metals or iron-rich core. Instead, it's made up almost entirely of rocks like Earth's mantle. This suggests a proto Earth, about 60% the size of our our Earth, was impacted by a body about the size of Mars. The outer layers of both planetesimals ("little planets") were thrown into orbit while the core of the smaller body sunk and was absorbed by the proto Earth. Over time, about half the material thrown into space by the collision returned to Earth Mark II, while the remainder coalesced into the moon. This is the leading theory.

As a result of the other planet's core sinking into the Earth, the new Earth's core rotates slightly faster than the layers above. This rotational difference causes a magnetic field to be generated around the Earth, protecting us from the solar wind. It is essential to life, and no other inner planet has one. The evidence both on the moon and within the depths of Earth suggest that the moon was formed by this titanic impact.

The other interesting conclusion is that the moon is really the other half of the first Earth's mantle, whereas our Earth's core is really the core of an entirely different planet.

Neat stuff.

Answer 4

Mostly I agree with ink_collector, but I would like to add that generally, if the Moon had formed at the same location as the Earth during the formation of all the planets in the Solar System, we would expect it to be pretty much identical to the Earth. But it isn't. It isn't even a smaller, colder version of the Earth.

The Moon is much like the Earth's crust, and has no solid or liquid metal core and nowhere near as much iron in its interior as we would expect if it had formed at the same time as the Earth from the same materials.

Those who believe in the impact theory of the Moon's creation believe that the impact object was a iron-heavy meteor that now forms our Earth's solid and liquid core, and the Moon was made of stuff that was more crust like and upper-mantle like that got ejected in the collision.

Answer 5

same way the earth mars venus etc was.there are moon like object around most planets.

Answer 6

the moon is like earth; we're like 2 big rocks..

Answer 7

by God

Answer 8

god..............duh!!!!