Once upon a time, there was a moon...and then another.

[entropy13]

A tiny second moon may once have orbited Earth before catastrophically slamming into the other one, a titanic clash that could explain why the two sides of the surviving lunar satellite are so different from each other, a new study suggests.

The second moon around Earth would have been about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) wide and could have formed from the same collision between the planet and a Mars-sized object that scientists suspect helped create the moon we see in the sky today, astronomers said.

The gravitational tug of war between the Earth and moon slowed the rate at which it whirls, such that it now always shows just one side to Earth. The far side of the moon remained a mystery for centuries until 1959, when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft first snapped photos of it. (The far side is sometimes erroneously called the dark side, even though it has days and nights just like the near side.)


full article here

 

[mlee49]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

 

[Benetanegia]

Interesting, I always thought that the old explanation "the far side of the moon is more exposed to meteorites and hence the difference" was good enough.

 

[Drone]

But they didn't say is the Moon made of cheese or not? I need to know

 

[Red_Machine]

We actually have three moons. The other two are just too small to see unless you use a telescope.

 

[freaksavior]

Honestly, I think this is the most bull shit thing they have come up with. With one things is slammed into another it
1.
A) breaks apart
B) has a large enough force to it (even in space) it gets knocked out of the gravitational field
C) makes a damn mountain (in space, that's pretty cool huh).
2.
A) The mass of the "second moon" if it was real, or crashed into the moon would still be stuck there unless it was made of jelly, and if it was jelly it wouldn't have done anything.
B) If the "second moon" has a low density, of something slightly more solid than jelly (i like jelly better) It would have made a crator, and broken apart(or stuck in the moon and screwed the gravitational pull).
C) If it was the same as B) and it moved into the moon as a extremely slow rate, then wouldn't it have simply pushed the moon out of the gravitational pull of the sun/earth thus leaving us with no moon at all and screwing up the gravitational field of the earth rotation?

And after looking at that picture, why isn't our moon more than one color?

So a college kid who hasn't even finished has just given you a scientific fact disprove their theory.


pwned.

 

[Maelstrom]

Honestly, I think this is the most bull shit thing they have come up with. With one things is slammed into another it
1.
A) breaks apart
B) has a large enough force to it (even in space) it gets knocked out of the gravitational field
C) makes a damn mountain (in space, that's pretty cool huh).
2.
A) The mass of the "second moon" if it was real, or crashed into the moon would still be stuck there unless it was made of jelly, and if it was jelly it wouldn't have done anything.
B) If the "second moon" has a low density, of something slightly more solid than jelly (i like jelly better) It would have made a crator, and broken apart(or stuck in the moon and screwed the gravitational pull).
C) If it was the same as B) and it moved into the moon as a extremely slow rate, then wouldn't it have simply pushed the moon out of the gravitational pull of the sun/earth thus leaving us with no moon at all and screwing up the gravitational field of the earth rotation?

And after looking at that picture, why isn't our moon more than one color?

So a college kid who hasn't even finished has just given you a scientific fact disprove their theory.


pwned.

I doubt the second moon was blue. They were just trying to show where the mass of the second moon went . As for the rest of you statement, I have don't have much to say really because I don't have any facts to confirm/dispute what you said, but I have a feeling that these scientist have some idea of what they are talking about (or at least, I hope).

 

[freaksavior]

I doubt the second moon was blue. They were just trying to show where the mass of the second moon went . As for the rest of you statement, I have don't have much to say really because I don't have any facts to confirm/dispute what you said, but I have a feeling that these scientist have some idea of what they are talking about (or at least, I hope).

Damn then why did they make the picture blue /confused/

Besides them showing a picture and saying the collided and joined together gives me no proof this is even remotely real.

 

[Maelstrom]

Damn then why did they make the picture blue /confused/

Besides them showing a picture and saying the collided and joined together gives me no proof this is even remotely real.

Like I said, I think they made it blue so they can show what happened to the second moon's mass when it collided. And yes, you are correct in that they don't provide many facts in the yahoo article. If you have access to the Nature journal, you could read the actual article.

 

[freaksavior]

I'm just messing with you, I know why they made it blue.

 

[xBruce88x]

well they have said that the moon is slowly (very slowly) drifting away. so i guess that could be evidence that it got whacked by something.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Interesting, I always thought that the old explanation "the far side of the moon is more exposed to meteorites and hence the difference" was good enough.

Same. The Earth has always (at least when it had a crust) shielded the side of the moon facing us from getting hit except on the rare occasion something sling shot around the Earth and hit it on the observable side. Meteorites, asteroids, etc. are far more likely to hit the non-observable side of the moon than the observable side due simply to exposure.

I find this new theory very difficult to believe simply because what they are saying is virtually impossible to prove.