When Earth 'Ate' A Planet

Where did our unique moon come from? It turns out that lunar rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts are a clue, pointing to the origin of our closest cosmic companion, an origin even stranger than you might imagine…

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Eons is a production of Complexly for PBS Digital Studios.

Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible:
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References:

[eons]

If you're sad the episode is over, don't worry! You can watch our next episode before it comes to YouTube right now over on PBS!

[Skroopy]

I wish I could be an intangible observer and witness this event. It would be epic to see.

[laurachapple]

New guy is gonna fit right in. He already sounds tired of the puns.

[haroldf]

35 hours!

There are few celestial events I wanna see. Planets colliding is number 1

[LRuth]

35 HOURS!!! Few things have blown my mind as much as hearing that it (potentially) only took a day and a half for the moon to form.

[kellydalstok]

Where does the moon come from? Well, when a mummy planet and a daddy planet love each other very much …

[LegendOfRian]

Is this Gabriel's first full episode? Great start!

[ojassarup]

The moon is actually a secret Decepticon base!

[I.amthatrealJuan]

I've read that those large low velocity provinces actually affect the surface geologic activity of the Earth by inducing volcanic hotspots, so that giant impact is still having a direct effect on our planet today.

[snowshinobi]

I have never thought about the moon's formation as planet cannibalism before ... I love this

[nebulan]

Oh, this is the first time we've seen Gabriel in a full-length video, right? Yay! 🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕

[simondodd]

That scorpion tail whipping off the ejecta and crashing back down on the Earth is one of the most haunting and terrifying visualizations I've ever seen.

[KoneSkirata]

I love videos about the moon, and this one had it all concerning its creation, even the epic 2022 simulation and Theia's potential mantle pieces beneath earth's surface, thank you.

I would love to see a similar video sometime - "Our moon - the full story", that covers not only the moon's origin, but all the implications that come from its anomalic existence - why such large moons are rare, what impact that could have had on earth's composition, how the moon might be related to events on earth like the tide, or even the origin of life itself. Where Theia might've come from - did it form in Sol's protoplanetary disc, or was it a rogue planet, or might it have even been an early collision with another star system which also explains some of the other bodie's retrograde movement?

Could also be a cool crossover episode between your PBS colleagues like PBS Spacetime.

I believe that our moon is the key to many odd and outstanding properties of earth. It could be the thing that truly sets us apart and makes earth "special", and might even be the solution to the famous Fermi Paradox.

[BobbyHill]

As soon as it was mentioned that the earth and moon have very similar isotopic ratios this theory is what came to my mind. It just makes sense that a collision would rip the mantles of both bodies apart but leave the more dense and gravitationally bound core more or less intact. And that the exterior of the smaller body would be mostly buried in the larger body, while the exterior of the larger body would make up the majority of the debris, meaning once all the dust settles the two bodies would have similar exteriors.
Though I do understand that “it just makes the most sense” isn’t exactly something you can get published in a journal, and when the early simulations all contradict your intuition, you have to follow the data and not what you think is right

[knbhed]

I'm used to learning about cosmic events occurring over the span of thousands or millions of years. To hear about the Theia collision and the subsequent second collision happening within a span of 35 hours is terrifying.

[jv_likes_plants]

"We love you PBS Eons" we all say in unison

[kettusnuhveli]

“More similar to its parent planet than any other moon in our solar system”
Was gonna mention Pluto and Charon but then I remembered that Pluto hasn’t been a planet in ages now… also aren’t they both smaller than the moon (and should probably be thought of more as a binary system)?

[mlpreiss]

I was going to ask about the LLVPs, but you beat me to it in your thorough treatment of the subject. Good work.

[texasyojimbo]

Nice moon. Where did you get it? The moon store?

[holliegould]

earth for 260mil years: 😊
earth 35 minutes later: "who the hell is this small guy and why does he keep following me" 🌎🌚