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Why the Moon's New Birthday Means the Earth Is Older Than We Thought
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes You're likely familiar with the theory of how the Moon formed: a stray body smashed into our young Earth, heating the planet and flinging debris into its orbit. That debris coalesced and formed the Moon. The impact theory still holds, but a team of geochemists from the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France has refined the date, finding that the Moon is about 60 million years older than we thought. As it turns out, that also means the Earth is 60 million years older than previously thought, which is a particularly cool finding considering just how hard it is to estimate the age of our planet.
You're likely familiar with the theory of how the Moon formed: a stray body smashed into our young Earth, heating the planet and flinging debris into its orbit.
Isn't that how human babies are made too?
Monstar L
apparently they're counting from the formation of the solar system, for which they don't have a year. previously had thought the earth to have formed 100 million years after that event but now they put it at 40.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Duh, it's 6,000 years old.
Yes of course. But these new findings show that it is 60 million years older than previously thought so it must be 60 million plus 6000 years.
As a devout Last Thursdayist, I think it obvious that the Earth, as well as the uiverse, my memories and a load of photons already in-flight, were created last Thursday.
Teach the controversy!
"which is a particularly cool finding considering just how hard it is to estimate the age of our planet."
How would adding 60 million years to our current hard-to-estimate-estimate make that estimate any more accurate?
Creationist: "It's 6000 years old!"
Scientist: "It's 60 million years older!"
Creationist: "Ok then, it's 60006000 years old!"
Breaking news!
Earth appears to be one year older (see 2014 paper) than previously thought (see 2013 paper).
It's not hatred mate... It's pity mixed with dismay about the state of education and social disfucntion engendered in such beliefs all expressed as what would be seen as good natured ribbing if the mistake being pointed at was hmm lets say mistaking Paris, Texas for Paris, France.
With what did the collision happen if the earth wasn't already there? I fail to see how the moon being carved out the earth 60 Myr earlier affects the age of the earth.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I have no rational response to that, so if you don't mind, I'd like to burn you as a heretic. Hold still please while I build a fire.
Day 0 - Our sun is puked into existence, with a shit-tonne of rubble floating around it.
100 million years later, a big rock hits earth - thus earth must have been there, so we know earth was made on or before 100 million years after the sun. Previous measurements of our atmosphere from rocks suggests this to be true.
French people look at all the observations, and saw that the calibrations were a bit off, and then worked out that collision took place 60 million years earlier than previously thought. Therefore, the earth must have formed 60 million years earlier than first thought, and been solid and "finished" enough to be able to produce the moon from the impact. That suggests the earth was formed in 40 million years, not 100 million years - that makes quite a difference to our understanding of how planets are formed. From the French perspective, this means the FSM didn't have as many RTT days in his contract as was previously thought, and possibly worked many of the days we now consider public holidays too.
With what did the collision happen if the earth wasn't already there? I fail to see how the moon being carved out the earth 60 Myr earlier affects the age of the earth.
This. I thought exactly the same thing. It's like, I have a 20 year old toaster, I made toast in it 4 years ago. So, that means it has to be a 24 year old toaster?
From what I understand, the article should say that the earth could be up to 60 million years older than we thought. Because we do not know the exact time difference of the formation between the earth and the moon, we may still say it is 0 up to 60 millions years. If the earth and the moon have formed at the same time, then the earth is 60 million years older than we thought. If the earth had been there 60 million years or longer before the moon formed, then there is no change in the earth age.
6K ought to be enough for anybody?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
With what did the collision happen if the earth wasn't already there? I fail to see how the moon being carved out the earth 60 Myr earlier affects the age of the earth.
I believe that conclusion comes from the idea that the collision was between two proto-planets - that is, for all intents and purposes, the Earth and the Moon only came into being after the collision. Wikipedia calls them "the proto-Earth" and "the impactor" which supposedly was the size of Mars. An impact like that would have changed everything so dramatically that even if we had some age-measurable material that survived the impact, we wouldn't know whether it came from the proto-Earth or the impactor. So it makes some sense to use that event as the "birth" of our planet.
And of course you can't just use the absolute age of some atoms, if we could measure such a thing. Maybe some of the heavier atoms fused in that impact, but some material came the supernova(e) that seeded our solar nebula with heavier atoms and induced the rotation that eventually became the Sun's accretion disk, some came from other, smaller impacts of bodies probably formed at the beginning of the Solar System, etc.
Every1 knoes that the earth is 6000 years old! U MAD BRO?! Butthurt!
As someone that's now considered "Middle aged" let me help you with your "young people" speech. "BRO" was a term that was cool, only to people in highschool about 5yrs ago. It was never cool to 99.9% of the world, but now, 5yrs later, it's not even cool to the people you used to say it to. After you left highschool it moved into the state of "Lets make fun of how we used to talk" but it's even past that now. It's not moved into the same territory as "Righteous" and "Square" you just don't even mention the word without sounding like an idiot.
protip: he'll light up easier after closing time Saturday night
Count the zero's?
Given all the extensive cosmic surgery.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert