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How did the Moon come to be in such an orbit?
What is most widely accepted today is the giant-impact theory. It proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of Mars. The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.
What would happen to the Earth if the Moon was knocked out of orbit?
It is the pull of the Moon’s gravity on the Earth that holds our planet in place. Without the Moon stabilising our tilt, it is possible that the Earth’s tilt could vary wildly. It would move from no tilt (which means no seasons) to a large tilt (which means extreme weather and even ice ages).
Did the Moon come from the Pacific Ocean?
It was proposed that the Pacific Ocean represented the scar of this event. Today it is known that the oceanic crust that makes up this ocean basin is relatively young, about 200 million years old or less, whereas the Moon is much older.
How did such a big moon ended up in Earth orbit?
This model, published in 2012 by Robin M. Canup, suggests that the Moon and Earth formed from a massive collision of two planetary bodies, each larger than Mars, which then re-collided to form what is now called Earth. After the re-collision, Earth was surrounded by a disk of material, which accreted to form the Moon.
Can the moon crash into Earth?
Long answer: The Moon is in a stable orbit around Earth. There is no chance that it could just change its orbit and crash into Earth without something else really massive coming along and changing the situation. The Moon is actually moving away from Earth at the rate of a few centimetres per year.
When did Earth get its moon?
4.5 billion years ago
It smashed into the developing Earth 4.5 billion years ago. This collision produced enough heat to create magma oceans and ejected a lot of debris into orbit around the Earth, which subsequently coalesced into the Moon.
When did the Moon hit the earth?
Scientists have long agreed that the Moon formed when a protoplanet, called Theia, struck Earth in its infancy some 4.5 billion years ago.