Posted on 08/03/2011 12:49:20 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the "big splat."
The result: Our planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Many theories can be gleaned by taking acid with a word processor handy..
If the third human on earth didn’t come from two other ones then a bodacious Yarn MUST be constructed.. to explain it..
James P. Hogan wrote an interesting series of sci-fi books based upon the aggregation on the farside due to the death of the planet Minerva that formed the asteroid belt.
Wrong. The big splat hit D.C. resulting in so many moonbats there.
Standing, waiting for the first Kim Kardashian pics.
interesting theory, let me guess they want a government grant to study it?
Plausible but pointless.
She really seems to have her hands full. (see what I did there?)
The moon would be (and is) slightly lopsided anyway because of tidal forces due to Earth's gravitational pull. That is why the moon's rotation is locked to its orbit so that the same side always faces the Earth.
Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the "big splat."Thanks GeronL.
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Indeed. And I’ve always thought the far side of the moon had more craters because that side takes more hits from meteors.
No.
I assure you that Quix’s
nightmares
were NOT the origin of this theory.
Awaiting Al Gore to announce that if we do not reduce Global Warming, the Earth will once more give birth to a second moon to remove the ill gained heat from Mother Earth.
Given the size of Al Gore’s ego/head . . .
he could create another moon all on his own, I suspect.
/sar
Early Earth may have had two moons, Richard Lovett · Nature · 3 August 2011 · Both satellites would have formed from debris that was ejected when a Mars-size protoplanet smacked into Earth late in its formation period. Whereas traditional theory states that the infant Moon rapidly swept up any rivals or gravitationally ejected them into interstellar space, the new theory suggests that one body survived, parked in a gravitationally stable point in the Earth-Moon system. Several such 'Lagrangian' points exist, but the two most stable are in the Moon's orbit, 60° in front or 60° behind... The Moon's visible side is dominated by low-lying lava plains, whereas its farside is composed of highlands...The crust on the farside is 50 kilometres thicker... The nearside is also richer in potassium (K), rare-earth elements (REE) and phosphorus (P)... An impact, he believes, is the most likely explanation.
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