Origin of the Moon
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
2021-03-04 v1 Geophysics
Space Physics
Abstract
The Earth-Moon system is unusual in several respects. The Moon is roughly 1/4 the radius of the Earth - a larger satellite-to-planet size ratio than all known satellites other than Pluto's Charon. The Moon has a tiny core, perhaps with only ~1% of its mass, in contrast to Earth whose core contains nearly 30% of its mass. The Earth-Moon system has a high total angular momentum, implying a rapidly spinning Earth when the Moon formed. In addition, the early Moon was hot and at least partially molten with a deep magma ocean. Identification of a model for lunar origin that can satisfactorily explain all of these features has been the focus of decades of research.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.02045,
title = {Origin of the Moon},
author = {Robin M. Canup and Kevin Righter and Nicolas Dauphas and Kaveh Pahlevan and Matija Ćuk and Simon J. Lock and Sarah T. Stewart and Julien Salmon and Raluca Rufu and Miki Nakajima and Tomáš Magna},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.02045},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
Book chapter in "New Views on the Moon II"