Imagine Earth as a giant pizza, and a space rock, Theia, crashes into it! BOOM! That's how scientists used to think our Moon was born. But like any good story, there's always a twist. Turns out, the Moon might be more like a piece of Earth's own crust, not a slice of Theia's pizza at all!
For years, scientists believed a Mars-sized planet, Theia, slammed into young Earth, throwing chunks of rock into space that clumped together to form the Moon. But when scientists looked super closely at the "ingredients" of Moon rocks, they found something surprising: they were almost exactly the same as Earth rocks! It's like finding two cookies from different batches that taste exactly the same – pretty weird, right?
Professor Andreas Pack and his team at Göttingen University decided to solve this cosmic puzzle. They looked at tiny things called "oxygen isotopes," which are like fingerprints that tell us where a rock came from. And guess what? The Moon's fingerprint was almost identical to Earth's!
This means Theia might have lost its "crust" in earlier space crashes, leaving only its heavy metal "core" to smash into Earth. So, when the big crash happened, the Moon was mostly made from Earth's own stuff! It's like Earth coughed up a giant space ball!
This discovery changes everything! It helps us understand how Earth got its water and how the Moon became our bright nightlight. Scientists are still studying Moon rocks and running space crash simulations to learn even more. Who knows what other amazing secrets the Moon is hiding? Maybe you'll be the one to uncover them!
References
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/theia-moon-formation-theory?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic%2Fspace
