This is News?
Somewhere between 1964 (when I was in sixth grade) and today, I must have missed something. A number of media sites are reporting that "the moon was once part of the earth" hypothesis is "new." I learned that in grade school science.
Did that theory become "unaccepted" at some point and I missed it?
Did that theory become "unaccepted" at some point and I missed it?
There have been several variants over the years - when you were in school it was a simple fission hypothesis. In the mid 1980's a new consensus began to emerge - usually Bill Hartmann's name is attached to it. Sometimes called the "big splat", a Mars-sized body rammed the coalescing earth. Some of the resultant debris gravitationally condensed to form the moon. There have been a number of variants of the big splat over the years - this one is apparently one. he big story is the same; the details are different. This one apparently concentrates on the rapid rotation of the Earth as responsible for most of the moon's materials.
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