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={Robin M. Canup and Erik Asphaug}, journal={Nature}, year={2001}, volume={412}, pages={708-712} }
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…
773 Citations
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