Origin of the Moon

The origin of the moon is not absolutely known like most astronomical issues. Throughout the recorded history of mankind many theories have evolved trying to explain this phenomenon but even today there is not an absolute accepted answer. There are even conspiracy theorists who question the idea that we landed on the moon, citing that it could have been fabricated. By and large though, most believe that man did land on the moon in 1969, but just prior to this groundbreaking event, there were three main theories of the moon's origin. One of these theories is the fission theory which concludes that the moon formed out of the ancient earth's mantle during rapid rotation shortly after the earth's origin. This theory was proposed by Charles Darwin's son G.H. Darwin. The next main theory was the capture theory which proposed that the moon was created elsewhere in our solar system and was captured into the earth's orbit where it still exists today. The third main theory pre-1969 was the double planet theory, also known as the co-accretion theory, which proposes that the earth and the moon formed together at the same time from the "primordial swarm of small planetesimals". When the lunar missions of the late 60's and early 70's returned with rocks from the moon's surface a new theory came to light stemming from the inability to prove the three prior theories with the scientific data pulled from the gatherings of the astronauts.

After man's landing on the moon scientists began experimenting with the samples from the surface of the moon brought back by astronauts. In 1984, stemming from the idea that the solar system was a very violent place in the time frame when the earth originated a new theory came to fruition. At this time planets would commonly collide with each other due to the fact that they would form in various sizes and at various distances from each other. These would result in planets not fully forming until these large planeterial masses would collide and form new orbits and different planeterial bodies stemming from debris and other results of the chaos. This theory is called the Giant Impact theory and today is the most widely accepted.

The Giant Impact theory states that the moon was formed from debris resulting from the collision of early earth with an object nearly the size of Mars. This primitive Mars sized planet was formed theoretically at a very comparable distance from