Plot Twist: Moon Formed Within Hours Instead of Millions of Years

Around 4.5 billion years ago, the young Earth witnessed a violent impact. It collided with an ancient Mars-sized protoplanet called Theia. The impact was so powerful that it created an enormous debris field out of which the Moon formed. This is known as the giant impact hypothesis or the Big Splash. Calculations suggest that Theia might have hit the Earth at a velocity of 9.8 km/s at an angle of 45 degrees.

The collision would have sent a shockwave around the Earth over the next few hours and created a debris field out of which the Moon eventually formed over the next millions of years. While there's a lot of evidence to support this hypothesis, scientists have found another fascinating thing about it. New NASA simulations show the Moon might have formed within hours from the debris field instead of millions of years. If it turns out to be accurate, it will be a ground-breaking discovery regarding our natural satellite.

But how did astronomers arrive at this conclusion? How could such a catastrophic collision form the Moon in mere hours? Finally, and most importantly, what happened moments after the collision that instantly created something as big as the Moon?

The 34th episode of the Sunday Discovery Series answers all these questions in detail.

REFERENCES:

RESOURCES:
Clips: NASA, VideoBlocks, Pond5, Envato Elements
Music: MotionElements
Special Thanks: SpaceRip

Created By: Rishabh Nakra and Simran Buttar
Narrated By: Jeffrey Smith

The Secrets of the Universe on the internet:

[zetectic]

I had the privilege to look at moon rocks in thin-section under a microscope years ago. Mainly made up of plagioclase silicate, hence the grey colour. Still a lot to learn about the Moon. Thanks for the video.

[TexasTimeLord]

I found it odd that millions of chunks of rock could form a solid sphere as the million year theory suggested.
The fact that the rocks were molten would make the sudden creation theory a much more believable moon creation theory

[moonbeamskies]

I was there when the collision took place. It was absolutely terrifying.

[ComeonmenIDT]

lets assume Theia did collide with Earth in a 45 degree who's to say that the overlap between the two was that deep ? might have just been a couple miles / km, just enough to rip some Earth material off and slow down Theia enough to stay in orbit, so we have Theia with a small crust cover of Earth material

[waynesaban]

Since it happened so long ago, how do they know it was called Theia ???

[MultiMolly]

The moon was in liquid form when it left the earth, a chip off the old ball, as it were, in response to a hit from a much smaller orb than the one pictured here, that plunged to the center after throwing the spin off by 23 degrees, and the backsplash from the collision was what you would expect from a hit like that, a perfect sphere of liquid jumps out, but smaller than the incoming one, and since its iron content is off center, it is that side that consistently faces Earth, as it is magnetized. In addition, this plunging orb increased the diameter of the planet Earth considerable, beginning to fracture the cooling surface, breaking apart into the continents, causing Continental Drift before centering itself and becoming the new core of the planet. If the Earth's core is roughly the size of the moon, it would support my hypothesis.

[brookskelley]

What I don't understand is if Theia, being the size of Mars, hits the earth and stays largely intact, how is it 1/6th the size of earth. In other words, what was the mass of the Earth prior to Theia playing billards with it?

[ManicPandaz]

If you do the math, at a speed of 9.8 km/sec and a mars like diameter of 6779 km, that would mean it took 11.5 minutes for Thea to fully impact proto Earth… talk about a car crash in slow motion!

[HobbiesRfun]

What I've always been curious about is how the Earth maintained it's fairly stable orbit after the collision. You'd think after being smacked around by another planet the size of Mars, Earth might have been knocked out of it's orbit sending it swirling into the Sun, or swirling out the other direction farther into the outer Solar system, or even out of the Solar System. Earth, and life as we know it sure got lucky with that one.

[coralie]

Hmmm, all interesting, can't wait for the data from the Artemis missions!! Love your videos, by the way, always look forward to them, thanks so much!!

[AChandle]

That actually makes sense.
If the moon was a disk of materials,
the materials would have likely been captured by earth, and turned into a ring.

[lelandd.]

The earth did not "witness" this collision. It "experienced" it.

[ptd]

What if Theia, before it collided with Earth, was a frozen water world like Jupiter's moons, hence, the origin of Earth's oceans?

[billc.]

For all of us Americans (who are going metric every inch of the way) 9.8 kps looks to be about 22, 050 mph/6.215 mps. Imagine commuting to work (avg. 10 miles) and getting there in one and a half seconds. Whew! So, Theia was moving right along.

[davidragan]

Kinda figured that, since at the time Earth and Theia were likely still mostly molten, my theory, when I would visualize it in my head, has always been that collision made a tsunami of molten material that circumnavigated the globe and and the moon was ejected from Earth with most of it's mass pretty close together quickly forming Luna.

[scottramson]

I’m so happy to hear this has been studied through a super computer! I had asked if a small water world could be ran through super computer see if this was plausible. What the Big question now to me is, How did the earth’s mantle cool so fast and how so much water was introduced? Possibly a comet strike after Theau?

[lisar]

That quote in the beginning!!!! We feel like we’re from the solar system because we are!!! Stars exploded for us to exist 🤩

[smflatt]

Kudos to the scientists who traveled back 4.5 billion years to verify this theory! Very brave people indeed!

[iamnotamused]

There were a couple grad students that proposed the theory that the moon coalesced in less than 100 days.
I read a paper on it a few years ago.

[ginner]

Hmm, So if the moon is made up of material similar to the Earth's, where did all Theia's material end up?