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."

Comments

Wouldn't there be an empty space?

[mnslinky]

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.

Re:Wouldn't there be an empty space?

[Dystopian Rebel]

The article is slashdotted but it is possible that when this happened there was no solid surface yet to leave traces of this.

No, I think the article was slashdotted today.

The server in flames may leave traces on the floor and walls of the server room, but we'll have to wait for a "Best Way For Bright Child To Clean Server Room?" post to Ask Slashdot to confirm.

Re:Wouldn't there be an empty space?

[CheshireCatCO]

Everyone who has replied so far makes fair points, but misses the biggest point: the Moon is over 4 billion years old. There are virtually no rocks on the Earth's surface that even approach its age. That means that the ENTIRE Earth's surface has been replaced and reshaped in the interim. Things haven't just "shifted considerably", we've got a totally different surface. Any scar from that period is long, long since erased. And hole as deep as the Moon has long since filled in since the Earth is still very much a fluid over these timescales.

Runaway Nuclear Reaction...

[bytethese]

Check. Dutch Scientists, Check. Thought that the moon was caused by a Cosmic Dutch Oven, Priceless.

Sanitation

[Anonymous Coward]

So Earth basically got a bad case of gas, had an accident and now has its own turd in orbit.

Re:Or maybe

[xpuppykickerx]

Actually they used DC-8. The 737 didn't come out til like 10 million years later!

Nuclear Reactor

[heavygravity]

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.

Re:Impactors all the way

[Canazza]

We may never *know* for certain. We can have hypothesis after hypothesis, and although the giant impact fits the data nicely, and is unlikely to be wrong, the only way we'll really challenge that is by having other ideas. What really throws this theory out for me however (And I admit, I can't view the page, it's been /.ed) was that most of Earth's fissle material is in the crust, not the core. So any 'deep explosion' would have to have been in the crust or mantle, not the center.

Re:Impactors all the way

[Maury Markowitz]

> it would have had to be between Venus' and Mars' orbits.

They quote this as a problem?!

The baseline assumption is that the impactor formed in the Earth's trojans, which fixes this "complaint" perfectly. Unlike Jupiter (for instance), the Earth's trojans are not entirely stable, and any large objects placed in it will drift back and forth. This explains a VERY large number of data points:

1) it explains geological makeup perfectly
2) it explains why the impact angle was grazing
3) it explains why the Moon formed so long after the Earth

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis

Maury

Re:Teach the hypothetical controversy!

[db32]

Just to be fair to everyone here, there will be a variety of Christian-minded skepticism. To lump them all into one bunch is pretty dishonest.

We have group #1 that is going to claim the literalist nonsense. These are the folks that built the creationist fantasy tourist trap where children frolick with dinos in the displays.

We have group #2 that is probably going to take the approach you mentioned to various degrees. Some may say it could have been spontaneously created, but that is no reason to not investigate, we don't have a lot of good information yet. The other end will lean towards the idea that we haven't found any information yet and thus it must be spontaneously created. This is the realm of curable ignorance on one side and pseudoscience nonsense on the other.

Then we will have the final group, that thankfully has gained at least some traction. The group that will say "Sure God created it...and a runaway nuclear reaction or massive impact are two possible methods that the universe played out that caused it to be created...let's go figure it out." Despite the common slashdot groupthink on this subject, there are indeed quite a few very intelligent people that also hold religious beliefs and don't let those religious beliefs muddy up the science. Francis Collins and Ken Miller are two examples that jump to mind. (In fact, if you haven't seen Ken Miller's video on the ID/Dover trial business, it's about 2hrs, but it is an amazing lecture.)

How Big the Earth, How Thin the Crust

[Alien54]

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.