Re: Origin of the Moon .. pro/con Collision Theory arguments invited

In article
<e302dde2-f99c-478a-836d-fda1875e5a04@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Stevepppp@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On May 22, 7:53 pm, "jonathan" <H...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The earth-moon  system is really a binary planet system.
Maybe there was a large collision in the asteroid belt that ended up
giving us the moon?

With a collision being as part of the "gift."


The simple fact it's so hard to prove one
way or the other means to me complexity is here.

At least we can elliminate some of the theories logically such as the
collision theory. If the collision theory is true, it would have to be
a fairly direct (center) hit in order for the debris not to glance out
of earth's gravity forever and early on in the earth's and moon's
history.

Well, some astronomers disagree with you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis

Perhaps you should write them and explain to them why they're wrong.

 So the formation should be a ...combination...of the two most
likely ways.

Which two?


It seems to me that capture /and/ collision of a planet size body
to be the only idea that can create this complexity and uncertainty.
The other choices have too many problems.

The capture without collision has some major problems, enough that I
rule it out.

Oh, well. I guess that settles it.

The only exception being super intelligence was used. The
earth is too small and the moon too large for any kind of friendly
gravitational hand shaking. The moons of Saturn or Jupiter are very
different scenarios. Perhaps even a fairly large moon could approach
the outer gravitational edges of those giants and be captured without
a collision IMHO.

Sorry, but YHO doesn't count unless you can work out the orbits and
where the energy for the necessary delta-V came from.

A good computer simulation might be able to prove
this and also prove that the moon couldn't be captured by tiny earth
without a collision unless again intelligence was used to slowly put
the moon into earth's orbit.

Well, if you invoke an "intelligence" then all bets are off: there's no
way to make any kind of scientific prediction that way.

Unless there's some real strange angle, there's only two scenarios,
the collision theory or intelligence.

Which leaves just one scientific scenario.

--
Timberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com
"When you post sewage, don't blame others for
emptying chamber pots in your direction." ?Chris L.
.

Relevant Pages