Origin of the Moon in a giant impact near the end of the Earth's formation
Abstract
The Moon is generally believed to have formed from debris ejected by a large off-centre collision with the early Earth. The impact orientation and size are constrained by the angular momentum contained in both the Earth's spin and the Moon's orbit, a quantity that has been nearly conserved over the past 4.5 billion years. Simulations of potential moon-forming impacts now achieve resolutions sufficient to study the production of bound debris. However, identifying impacts capable of yielding the Earth-Moon system has proved difficult. Previous works found that forming the Moon with an appropriate impact angular momentum required the impact to occur when the Earth was only about half formed, a more restrictive and problematic model than that originally envisaged. Here we report a class of impacts that yield an iron-poor Moon, as well as the current masses and angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system. This class of impacts involves a smaller-and thus more likely-object than previously considered viable, and suggests that the Moon formed near the very end of Earth's accumulation.
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According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, a Mars-sized object collided with young Earth and led to the formation of the Moon.
“According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, this is when young Earth collided with a Mars-sized object, which led to the formation of the Moon (Canup and Asphaug, 2001).”
From The Astrobiology Primer v2.0 (2016) · cites this paper as Canup and Asphaug, 2001
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Delivery of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur to the silicate Earth by a giant impact
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- Authors
- Canup, R. M., & Asphaug, E.
- Affiliations
- Southwest Research Institute (US)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
- Corresponding author
- Canup, Robin M.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2001-08
- Volume
- 412
- Issue
- 6848
- Pages
- 708-712
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2043818941
- Cited by
- 1,094
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 48 · 2025: 62 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 80 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 78 · 2018: 64 · 2017: 53 · 2016: 43 · 2015: 47 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 41 · 2012: 43
- FWCI
- 13.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Johns Hopkins University
- Southwest Research Institute
- Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astro and Planetary Science
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Planetary Science and Exploration
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › History and Developments in Astronomy
- Keywords
- Moon formation, giant impacts, Earth formation, Earth-Moon system, impact ejecta, Earth accretion, impactor size
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