American scientists were able to figure out the history of the moon. According to employees of the University of California, the celestial body was formed due to the head-on collision of Theia and the Earth 100 million years after the birth of the latter.
American geochemists succeeded in developing this theory after studying seven rocks brought from the Moon by the space missions Apollo 12, Apollo 15 and Apollo 17. Researchers have found that some of the moonstones were originally located on the surface of the Earth, approximately in the region of Arizona and Hawaii.
Project manager Edward Young emphasized that absolutely no differences were found between the oxygen isotopes of celestial bodies: the satellite has the same O-16 ratio with 8 protons and 8 neutrons as the Earth, while all other planets in the solar system have a different particle ratio …
The researchers were able to prove that lunar rocks are extremely similar to those belonging to the embryonic planet They. This is what prompted scientists to conclude that at the time when the Earth was 100 million years old, Thea crashed into it, as a result of which the Moon appeared.
Elena Razumovskaya
