By Charles Carter, 06/10/22
Pioneers at NASA’s Ames Research Center have created a new high-resolution simulation which shows the Moon could have formed within hours of a collision between Earth and Mars-sized body Theia.
Previous prevailing theories claimed that the Moon formed months or years after the collision and mostly from debris from Theia, with little debris from Earth mixed in.
This seemed to go against analysis of Moon rocks which show very similar chemical signatures to Earth, but the new simulation backs this up with much more Earth material involved in the birth of the Moon.
How does it work?
The engineers ran around 400 impact simulations between Earth and Theia, with different angles, speeds, spins, mass, surface temperature and particle resolutions.
When simulating this type of collision, the material involved is split into smaller elements or particles, which interact with each other to give an overall result.
The team tested a range of resolutions between 100 thousand and 100 million particles. Critically, higher resolutions produced early forming Moons with a material mix more consistent with rock analysis.
The simulation times varied between 25 and 50 hrs, with the models allowed to run until the system of bodies reached a stable state.
What are the potential benefits?
This high-resolution simulation which made use of supercomputing power, has produced a new theory of Moon birth that more closely explains observed measurements.
Deepening humanity’s understanding of how the Moon formed helps to bring more meaning to our lives. Especially as the Moon was thought to be critical to the origin of life on Earth, with tides helping to mix the primordial soup leading to DNA, according to some theories.
As computing power grows, including quantum computing over the coming decades, pioneers will be able to run extremely high-resolution simulations. This could lead to further breakthroughs in our understanding of the cosmos.
Questions for you. Comment below
- First thought that comes into your head?
- Pros and cons according to you?
- Other applications of this approach?
- What could this be combined with?
Links
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/lunar-origins-simulations/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac8d96
