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Birth of the Moon: a Runaway Nuclear Reaction?
An anonymous reader writes "How the Moon arose has long stumped scientists. Now Dutch geophysicists argue that it was created not by a massive collision 4.5 billion years ago, but by a runaway nuclear reaction deep inside the young Earth."
Wouldn't there be evidence of this on the surface somewhere? I know the crust has shifted considerably, but that's a *lot* of material to suddenly vacate.
the moon is made of cheese
clearly, the young earth was lactose intolerant, and ejected it for that reason
the problem is all infants can digest lactose, and lose the lactase enzyme ability later in life if they don't have the right genes
but all theories have holes in them
like swiss cheese!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Check. Dutch Scientists, Check. Thought that the moon was caused by a Cosmic Dutch Oven, Priceless.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So Earth basically got a bad case of gas, had an accident and now has its own turd in orbit.
While it's certainly an interesting idea I can't see it being right (but I've only read the first page, the site seems to have collapsed). My problem with it is simple that the impactor idea seems to fit all the data so well I think it's unlikley to be wrong.
I wonder though if this could perhaps be tested. The huge explosion theory could well have left old rocks away from the explosion site untouched. The impactor would have melted the whole planet. If we find even one rock old than the impact date we have our answer.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I thought that a number of scientists had run simulations explaining the earth/moon systems creation via a collision. I even saw it on TV on a special narrated by Tony Robbins, so it MUST be true!
The Moon is a secret Italian conspiracy to spy on, undermine, infiltrate, and subvert America. That's why it is always in OUR sky -- ever wondered about that? How come Mexicans and Chinese don't get the Moon? Because they are in league with the nefarious Italians against our Great Fatherland.
probably not going to happen. it would make A LOT more sense to clean up the mess we've made here. the creators will provide future accommodations as needed. see you there?
We all know that if there were a nuclear catastrophe of this magnitude, then the whole planet would be hurled through space at such speed that each week we would encounter a new alien race, group of outcasts, or supernatural being. Seeing as the earth is still in its stable orbit around the sun, we can conclude that this must not have happened.
It was caused by aliens driving 737's and dropping nukes into volcanoes.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I'm on page three. I had to look up a couple of things of wikipedia so far. I hadn't heard the word Petrology before; it's the study of rocks.
The term "georeactor" seemed self-explanatory but I looked it up anyway, and was glad I did.
As Mr. Spock would say, "fascinating." My thanks to the story submitter.
Free Martian Whores!
This is really just another nice bedtime story, isn't it? Sure scientists can speculate about this sort of thing, but the possible scenarios are only limited by the researchers' imaginations. There is no way of knowing whether this sort of tale is really what happened. The only thing that can happen here is that someone will come up with a reason why it could not have happened this way. If that doesn't happen all we have is a nice story that nobody has debunked yet.
...but not completely. The nuclear waste that caused the moon to be torn away were stored HERE! A cautionary tale?
As /. causes a nuclear explosion on cosmosmagazine.com preventing anyone from RTFA
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
If the moon were real, it would have been created by God. Clearly a large ball of rock is the sign of an intelligent Creator, if it were there.
But the site is /.ed
Can't get to the article, but - if you haven't heard of this before, it's pretty cool: the Oklo Natural Fission Reactor in Gabon. And while you're at it, you can read about how this natural reactor has scientists rethinking how constant the fine structure constant really is.
Cuban Music MP3's - cuband.com
version 0.9 ?
I know you're joking, but
Free Martian Whores!
I can't get to TFA, but it seems mighty unlikely to have that much fissile material just so happen to gather together, and not be poisoned by cadmium, boron, lead, or other neutron absorbers, and have it stay together and not have a negative temperature coefficient slowing it down, and not form bubbles and geysers and other instabilities, and have it push asymmetrically in one direction, for many hours (cf: speed of sound). Wayaaay too many things to believe before breakfast.
... we can't have nukler power. You don't want there to be two moons, now do you? What would you do with two moons????
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
As noted, the site is Slashdotted so I can't read it straight up. That said, this doesn't make sense to me. A large explosion on the Earth's surface wouldn't launch material into Earth orbit unless it were launched at a very precise angle (probably nearly horizontal). The authors (based on previous comments) complain that the Giant Impact hypothesis requires a finely-tuned impact angle, but what about their model? I'd expect an explosion to blow material almost radially outward. To posit that you'd get the finely-tuned launch angle from their model seems much more of a stretch than that an impact should strike a glancing blow (especially when we don't know how many similarly-sized impactors hit with the wrong conditions and were simply absorbed).
Also, note that you need to loft a lot more material than just the Moon's mass to make the Moon. it's not an efficient process, a lot (most?) of the material rains back down on the Earth. It has to, it starts out in an orbit that intersects the Earth after all.
Somehow the link to the Wilipedia article isn't to wikipedia but to science.slashdot.org. The wiki article on petrology is here.
Sorry.
Free Martian Whores!
It was Tong's invention who caused it: http://www.dailymotion.com/esma-movie/video/x70qa8_tong_creation
Oh, wait... it is. Nevermind.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Slashdotted due to runaway nuclear reaction. Mirror here: Birth of the Moon: a Runaway Nuclear Reaction?
(Or should that be a runaway Slashdot reaction?)
Looks like the site has been slashdotted... time for everyone's Carl Sagan impression to describe the meltdown: "Millions and millions of connections..."
This is my sig.
It is called the pacific ocean.
Even the traditional theories suggest that the pacific ocean is a scar created by the impact scraping off the continent and throwing it into orbit (yes I am simplifying).
While this new theory has issues (angular momentum), if it is true, the Pacific Ocean basin is proably the ste it happened.
Just to be sure I got this right, we're living on a massive nuclear reactor that is still active, and still of the same design that once brought catastrophic failure?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
It's the mother of all core dumps!
an other "how the moon formed" story?
look, let's just blow it up, so no one complains anymore!
Let's create another MOON!!!
No, it's a giant loogie!!
My question is, Why is COSMO doing science now?
What articles are next?
Top ten things that will make your moon leave the earth and how to prevent him from going?
How to make your proto-moon happy so he'll stay?
Just how much crust there is is often misunderstood.
Example: imagine a model of the earth where 1 mm = 1 mile. (or you can use 1mm = 1 km, if you like)
The earth is 7926.28 miles (12756.1 km) in diameter.
At this scale, you can make out significant mountain ranges, etc. The Atmosphere would be 4 or 5 inches deep. The crust is an inch or 2 thick.
And the Earth itself is more than 8 yards across. That inch or two of crust is sitting on a chewy molten insides. (check volcano flows, etc.)
The Earth is really a molten droplet spinning in space with the thinnest external layer where life has happened to accumulate, like the layer of tarnish on a coin.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
So, as soon Yucca Mountain gets tanked up, the Earth might get another moon?
That would be cool!
Less so, if you live in what used to be Nevada.
Ah, the joys of Space 1999 Physics! Truly worthy of an Ig Nobel!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So basically the earth burped and we got a moon?
One of my favorites! http://stores.nocturnal-pictures.com/-strse-46/Crack-in-the-World/Detail.bok
You metric system users are part of the Rebel Alliance and are traitors!
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
It appears we were STANDING on the weapon of mass destruction all along!
For the curious, a back of the envelope calculation suggests that the energy required to hoist the moon to its current altitude from the Earth's centre (disregarding the energy needed to set up its orbit) is of the same order of magnitude as the gravitational binding energy of the Earth (i.e. disregarding chemical bonding). This tells us two things:
1) Whatever was responsible was friggin' huge
2) Physics ain't the be-all and end-all of back-of-the-envelope calculations
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Let's check that argument. First off, the embedded claim "there are indeed quite a few very...etc." is undoubtedly true. Undoubtedly to the point that even the slashdot groupthink is unlikely to challenge it. So using the "despite" construction is a little disingenuous. You might as well have said:
Sounds silly, no? So why did you use that construct? Because you were wanting to misrepresent the groupthink position, and then take down the straw man. And thus imply that the groupthink position was wrong.
The problem is, this is logically equivalent to claims like the following:
You see the problem here. It is possible for someone to do something significant despite voluntarily taking an enormous handicap, but no one would suggest doing such things as a step towards achieving greatness. That's were the "despite" really belongs. The succeeded despite the handicaps, not because of them.
If you want to write a successful file system, killing your wife is not the best place to start. If you want to become the next Newton, taking up astrology isn't the best place to start. And if you want to be a scientist, religion isn't the best place to start. Yes, you can do it. But you'd make things a whole lot easier on your self if you ditched the handicaps at the outset.
That is the slashdot groupthink position, and your argument didn't touch it.
--MarkusQ
It was due to an Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, which did indeed cause an Earth-shattering kaboom although the final results weren't quite what the Martians had in mind at the time.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
1. Large Hadron Collider becomes fully functional June 2009. 2. Large Hadron Collider experiences an electrical fault-July 2009 3. Large Hadron Collider sucks approx. 7.347 7 × 1022 kg of material from billions of random places around the globe. 4. Large Hadron Collider creates a wormhole 1 millisecond after gathering the material. 5. Large Hadron Collider takes approx. 7.347 7 × 1022 kg of material and throws it back in time approx 4.5 billion years. 6. Large Hadron Collider decides its work is done, and rest on the seventh day, eating a turkey sandwich.
It's really not the same at all, but the article did call this story immediately to mind.
"Blowups Happen" is a classic 1940s SF story about a future in which society is total dependent on nuclear power plants. The engineering theory behind them shows that they are intrinsically safe and cannot blow up like a bomb. Then someone discovers that there is a false assumption in the equations and that, in fact they can blow up like bombs.
Meanwhile, an expert in the theory of lunar formation has concluded the lunar craters cannot have been formed by meteor impact, because of the "rays." There had to have been enough energy to "crack an entire planet." The only possible explanation, he says, is that the Moon was once an inhabited planet with an atmosphere and that "Here at Tycho was located their main power plant, and here at Copernicus and Kepler, on islands of the middle of the great oceans, were secondary power stations."
In other words, not only can they blow up like bombs, but that is what reduced the Moon to its present airless, lifeless, cratered and cracked state.
As I say, that's a completely different theory from the one being discussed. Nevertheless, I would bet a nickel that at least one of the authors of that article had read "Blowups Happen."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
call me a skeptic but that satellite looks way too uniform apart from meteor impact effects, to be a product of natural cosmic phenomenon.
Read radical news here
If the moon were made out of cheese, would you eat it?
If the moon were a giant tootsie pop, how many licks would it take to get to the center?
From Dark Star.
Have gnu, will travel.
You forgot my group which realizes that all three of those groups believe ancient fairy tales and are horrifically full of shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
it would appear that the last group of 'intelligent beings' were also looking for Higgs boson.
In fact, the UK is the only European country to do it differently (why doesn't that surprise me, the bloody bastards still drive on the wrong side of the road too).
Yeah, well that's why you were occupied by the Germans during WWII and we weren't. It's damn hard to steer a left-hand-drive tank on the wrong side of the road.
;)
Although perhaps the 22 miles of water helped as well
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Nuclear reactions do not work that way!
What are you doing moon
You are flying around the Earth. stop that, you are a moon
You don't even have any wings
Anybody else think that these people were reading too many Superman comics? They're basically describing the destruction of Krypton!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
my grandfather was a physicist in soviet union and he had pretty much the same theory, and was trying to convince other scientist, but was totally disregarded. There are many indicators of the moon departing from earth as a result of a huge internal explosion. as the result all the continents stayed on the other side and later drifted apart. So the departure was on the site of the pacific ocean.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day
http://www.tstg.org
The Moon ejected the Earth.
The Moon was originally a huge asteroid hell-bent on the destruction of Earth that changed it's mind.
The Moon is an accumulation of helium balloons loosed from the Earth and bleached by the Sun.
(note: I didn't write this, it's a classic meta-troll)
The "Moon": A ridiculous liberal myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
someone was finally found who was alive 4.5 billion years ago to give us definitive and irrefutable proof of this.
Moon,, nuclear explosion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_1999
Hell, I even had the toy:
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/merc/vmmemattel.html
Quote from article: ["These calculations showed that it is possible to launch a Moon if the georeactor generated about 0.5 x 10^30 joules. That is gigantic," he says. By way of example, a one gigawatt nuclear reactor generates just 1017 joules a year, so you'd need the annual energy production of 1013 of these reactors to get the same amount. ] Does something seem wrong with these numbers? Maybe they missed a couple of superscripts.
If you look at the prefix, then the following definition seems the more logical:
million is a million to the power of 1
billion is a million to the power of 2
trillion is a million to the power of 3
etc.
Not sure how the USA got into insisting that:
million is a thousand to the power of 2
billion is a thousand to the power of 3
trillion is a thousand to the power of 4
etc.
The American definition seems rather stupid.