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The Moon's Two Sides Look So Different Thanks To 4.5 Billion-Year-Old Physics (forbes.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the good-side-bad-side dept.

StartsWithABang writes: 4.5 billion years ago, a giant object collided with our proto-Earth, kicking up debris that eventually coalesced into the Moon. While the near side contains dark maria and lunar lowlands, the far side is almost exclusive heavily cratered, high-mountainous regions. This was a mystery for a long time, but it appears that heating from the hot, young Earth caused a chemical and crustal difference between the two faces.

2 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The moon could have been artificially created. by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

    The fact that it always faces the earth,

    Nothing remarkable about that. It's due to tidal locking and is quite common.

    and orbits the earth once every month is very intriguing.

    Yea, and Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease. [cue creepy music]

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  2. Re:Please StopWithABang by jfdavis668 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link could have gone straight to the Penn State news article Forbes was reporting on: http://news.psu.edu/story/3178...