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Our Moon May Have Formed From Multiple Small Ones, Says Report (go.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: A series of cosmic collisions may have spawned multiple moonlets that morphed into the one big moon we know today. Rather than one giant impact that knocked off part of early Earth and created the moon, a number of smaller collisions may have produced lots of mini-moons, Israeli scientists reported Monday. And those mini-moons, over millions of years, may have clumped together to make one large one. The researchers conducted nearly 1,000 computer simulations and estimate about 20 impacts could do the job. They say that would explain why the moon seems to be composed of material from Earth, rather than some other planet, too. It's actually an old theory revitalized now by the Weizmann Institute of Science's Raluca Rufu in Rehovot, Israel, and his team. Their findings were published in Nature Geoscience.
I should go find old theories and republish them as new ideas, then I can brag I was published in scientific journals.
An old theory no more proven today than then.
It's a bunch of small moons taped together!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
As I understand it, the Giant Impact Hypothesis has Theia's impact creating debris that gradually coalesced into the moon. That this debris formed several smaller moons before they joined up seems plausible, but I am not sure what is really different about what they are proposing.
Raluca Rufu in Rehovot, Israel, and his team.
As "Raluca" is a female name, it should be written "her team".
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
I know it's a cliche these days but isn't the idea of two bodies colliding somewhat more plausible than twenty? I would say of course the composition is similar to the Earth's. No doubt the bollide formed in a similar orbit and attracted similar materials to the Earth. It just lost the battle of accretion and eventually collided with it.
Thanks for explaining your dumb, ignorant way of seeing science play out. Being stupid is like being dead, you don't know you're stupid, the rest of us have to put up with it.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
What you are suffering from is called a displacement.
More precisely you appear to assume that scientists, like the creation myth in your favorite holy book, are claiming an absolute trust.
That does not work like that in the real world. Scientists create models and then try to invalidate them by comparing to reality.
Eventually all models become invalidated and are replaced by newer models that fit better with reality.
No sane scientist will ever claim that a specific model is absolutely true. That is why the article is full of "may" and "suggests". Same for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... page that describes the single large collision model.
The only thing that is correct in your post is that from the 5 scientists involved in your short story, the last one is probably the one that merits the most to be fired.
Why? Because scientists #1 and #3 are both proposing a model. Scientists #2 and #4 are defending those models. The only one that is not contributing in any useful way is scientist #5.
Thanks for explaining your dumb, ignorant way of seeing science play out. Being stupid is like being dead, you don't know you're stupid, the rest of us have to put up with it.
Well, he was at least smart enough to post as an AC, sparing himself the well deserved ridicule.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's a bunch of small moons taped together!
You forgot the proper reference and trademark symbol after "Taped(tm)".
I sense a joke I haven't heard since-
Many moons ago?
This is my sig, there are many like it but this one is mine
What you are suffering from is called projection.
You see, you were bullishly aggressive and dismissive with your initial assessment. You assumed the informational and detached format used to refute your reductive argument was designed as a personal attack, and therefor assumed it came from a defensive stance aka 'butt hurt'.
I guess what I'm really saying is that you are the one who is butt hurt.
"What you are suffering from is called a displacement.
More precisely you appear to assume that scientists, like the creation myth in your favorite holy book, are claiming an absolute trust."
What you are suffering from (as are the people you are criticizing) is thinking that science and faith are the same type of thing (like a table, or a rock). When someone who thinks this way (like you apparently do) is on the "side" of science, those of faith become the targets of contempt ("creation myth in your favorite holy book") and those who think this way on the side of faith think see your side as "it's just a theory -- they can't even agree what truth is".
They are two very different things. Having a science vs. theology debate is about as useful as having a color vs. scent debate. Or maybe a dark vs. wet debate...
" Unless their simulations can explain Earth is the only planet to have gotten a full fledged moon in such an environment the single large impact theory would seem to be the more likely scenario."
It probably is. And surprisingly enough, the "single large impact" theory ALSO appears to be the same as the "multiple moonlets" theory, only "after the single large impact"
Am I wrong or reading this wrong? Wouldn't the "single large impact" toss up a ton of rocks and basically form a "ring around the Earth (mutliple moonlets) which would eventually either coalesce in to one larger moon or eventually fall back to earth?
That was a grate joke!
This was presented more than 50 years ago by Gordan J. F. MacDonald, at that time professor of geophysics at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. His paper "Origin of the Moon: Dynamical Considerations" appeared in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences on 7 May 1965. As one of his computer programmers, I did the calculations for that paper. I think, however, that I might have done those calculations a few years earlier and that MacDonald published the same theory earlier than 1965.
I could almost agree with you except that my critic was not against religion as a whole but against a literal interpretation of religious texts.
The issue is not science vs religion but reality vs blind faith in an absolute truth.
More generally, the same problem is found in non-religious contexts such as flat earth and other conspiracy theories where people will first assert a truth and then will ignore any evidence against it.
Finally, a cheap and effective way to move a large number of people out of Earth's gravity well! When the next strike is going to occur, pile on to the to-be-ejected chunk and: BANG, ZOOM! Straight to the moon!
Except that Maritz's comment is unmodded, as you will planely see if you click on the word "Score". It is +2 because he has good karma and used that to contribute to the registered user's automatic 1.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?