• DOI:10.1038/35089010
Corpus ID: 4413525

Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth's formation

@article{Canup2001OriginOT,
  title={Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth's formation},
  author={R. Canup and E. Asphaug},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2001},
  volume={412},
  pages={708-712}
}

• R. Canup, E. Asphaug
• Published 2001
• Geology, Medicine
• Nature

The Moon is generally believed to have formed from debris ejected by a large off-centre collision with the early Earth. The impact orientation and size are constrained by the angular momentum contained in both the Earth's spin and the Moon's orbit, a quantity that has been nearly conserved over the past 4.5 billion years. Simulations of potential moon-forming impacts now achieve resolutions sufficient to study the production of bound debris. However, identifying impacts capable of yielding the… Expand