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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.

1 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I could be missing something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    20x closer

    Last time I checked, our unit systems measured distance (not closeness), temperature or heat (not coldness) and speed (not slowness).

    Anyone who says "X times closer" or "X times colder" or "X times thinner" or "X times slower" has failed to grasp the nature of measurement.