Did a Nuclear Blast on Earth Create the Moon?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

How on Earth did the moon come into being? If you subscribe to the latest theory, the moon was born out of a nuclear explosion on Earth that sent a chunk of mass flying from the planet’s core into orbit, where it finally became the moon. But cool as that sounds, some killjoy scientists are pooh-poohing the hypothesis, calling it “unnecessary,” “nonsensical,” and “not physically sensible.” The standard theory of the moon’s origin holds that a giant space object, possibly an asteroid, banged into Earth and sent a large piece of the planet flying into space. That piece eventually became the moon. But the composition of the moon doesn’t seem to support this theory. Researchers say if an asteroid or some such object smashed away part of the Earth, the Moon ought to be composed of about 80 percent of that object’s constituent material and about 20 percent of the Earth’s. But the makeup of moon rock closely mirrors that of the Earth [Popular Science].

An alternate theory, known as the fission theory, suggests that the moon spun out of the rapidly spinning blob of molten rock that would later become Earth [Popular Science]. But no one has been able to explain what caused a huge chunk of earth to spin away and become the moon. Now, researchers Rob de Meijer and Wim van Westrenem have proposed in an online paper that centrifugal forces may have concentrated heavy, radioactive elements like uranium and thorium at the boundary between the Earth’s mantle and its core. Then, they propose, a massive nuclear explosion occurred at the edge of Earth’s core, flinging red-hot, liquid rock into space. The orbiting detritus gradually congealed into what is now our planet’s lone satellite [Discovery News].

Such “georeactors” have existed on Earth before, albeit on a smaller scale than these researchers propose. But de Meijer and van Westrenem have gotten little support for their hypothesis, and plenty of scorn.

Geophysicist Marvin Herndon, who has previously espoused the controversial idea that uranium once sunk to the earth’s core and formed a georeactor there, isn’t buying into the new theory. He says he’s skeptical of a georeactor’s existence at the earth’s core-mantle boundary, explaining that uranium is so heavy that when it liquefies in a nuclear reaction, it should fall to the Earth’s core [New Scientist].

Other scientists asked how the researchers had modeled this kind of explosion, as Princeton University astrophysicist Richard Gott pointed out: “How do they really know it would produce a thin jet of matter?” [New Scientist]. Gott adds that if indeed the georeactor hypothesis was right, then Venus, which is similar in mass and composition to Earth, should have formed its own moon in a similar process–but it didn’t. For further evidence, points out to Pluto, asking “how do you explain Charon, the big icy moon of Pluto? That would require an ‘ice-reactor’, which is a nonsensical idea!”[New Scientist]. David Stevenson, a planetary physicist at Caltech, blew the whole theory right back into space, saying: “The whole idea is not physically sensible,” he says. “Life is too short to spend on things like this” [New Scientist].

The researchers, however, aren’t backing down. They say the best way to test this idea is to look for isotopic signatures on the Moon left over from when the “georeactor” exploded. If they’re there, it’s a good chance that Earth once went critical in a huge way, and our ghostly galleon was tossed into the heavens by the world’s first nuclear detonation [Discovery News].

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[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

So many planets have moons... some more than just one. Nuclear proliferation is clearly a bigger problem than I thought.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

The moon is made from green cheese.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So many planets have moons... some more than just one. Nuclear proliferation is clearly a bigger problem than I thought.

Have you watched the program, How the Earth Was Made, on the History Channel? Really interesting stuff. The most recent one I watched explained how the Hawaiian Islands were made. There is a hot spot underneath the earth's outer crust and as the tectonic (sp) plates move, this hot spot bursts molten lava out, forming new islands. The oldest Hawaiian Island is sinking back into the sea while the biggest island is still growing. There's also a great danger of a massive slide off of section of island and could happen anytime.

[luckytxn 2,264]

Have you watched the program, How the Earth Was Made, on the History Channel? Really interesting stuff. The most recent one I watched explained how the Hawaiian Islands were made. There is a hot spot underneath the earth's outer crust and as the tectonic (sp) plates move, this hot spot bursts molten lava out, forming new islands. The oldest Hawaiian Island is sinking back into the sea while the biggest island is still growing. There's also a great danger of a massive slide off of section of island and could happen anytime.

Called volcanoes.

[NickD 203]

More interesting was that series, If we didn't have moon, or something like that. But if we didn't, wouldn't have to wonder about it, we wouldn't be here.

One thing I noticed about these media hungry scientist, a very small group of them trying to out do each other with way out theories, can only wonder what brand of crack they are smoking. Like the entire universe was the size of a basketball before the big bang. Hell I had a rock ten times that size in my yard I had a hell of a hard time moving, and that was just an infinitesimal part of a basketball?

Discovery the magazine just had an article on time machines, that also blew my mind, hey Einstein is talking about the speed of light and light is an image, nothing else, certainly nothing to do with moving people around, besides that light would scatter since it's not pure like a laser and fad into nothing. And besides that, if a time machine was even possible, it already has been invented.

Maybe instead of pondering this stuff, we should all join them and smoke crack too. Could be since we are just looking at light in the sky, those sources are long gone, and the universe is much smaller than we think it is. Could be. Prove it.

[Nagishkaw 510]

There is a hot spot underneath the earth's outer crust

Gehenna?

Did a Nuclear Blast on Earth Create the Moon?

I wonder Who created the nuclear blast?

[Niels Bohr 72]

It could be impact from an asteroid moving so fast that it is equivalent to a Nuclear blast.

[natty bumppo 297]

could have been an errant warhead hit from the intergalactic wars of old ...

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

It's most likely an asteroid.

Natural nuclear reactors are pretty cool though.

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

[ValerieA 350]

could have been an errant warhead hit from the intergalactic wars of old ...

Maybe they were trying to make room for a hyperspatial express route.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Speaking of hyperspace, I wish humans could manipulate it somehow. Heck, we have the mathematical tools of hyperspace manipulation, but physics takes a long time to use it.

Maybe they were trying to make room for a hyperspatial express route.

[scandal 951]

Have you watched the program, How the Earth Was Made, on the History Channel? Really interesting stuff. The most recent one I watched explained how the Hawaiian Islands were made. There is a hot spot underneath the earth's outer crust and as the tectonic (sp) plates move, this hot spot bursts molten lava out, forming new islands. The oldest Hawaiian Island is sinking back into the sea while the biggest island is still growing. There's also a great danger of a massive slide off of section of island and could happen anytime.

I haven't watched that program, but the question posed in its title "How the Earth was made", reminds me of one of the most romantic (imho) facts about our universe that I'm aware of. Namely, that we are all, each and every one of us, each and every molecule of each and every cell of our bodies, every single carbon atom of our tissues, made of "stardust". Quite literally - we were born in the stars in the heavens.

http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=52

Are we really all made of stardust?

We are all made of stardust. It sounds like a line from a poem, but there is some solid science behind this statement too: almost every element on Earth was formed at the heart of a star.

Next time you’re out gazing at stars twinkling in the night sky, spare a thought for the tumultuous reactions they play host to. It’s easy to forget that stars owe their light to the energy released by nuclear fusion reactions at their cores. These are the very same reactions which created chemical elements like carbon or iron - the building blocks which make up the world around us.

After the Big Bang, tiny particles bound together to form hydrogen and helium. As time went on, young stars formed when clouds of gas and dust gathered under the effect of gravity, heating up as they became denser. At the stars’ cores, bathed in temperatures of over 10 million degrees C, hydrogen and then helium nuclei fused to form heavier elements. A reaction known as nucleosynthesis.

This reaction continues in stars today as lighter elements are converted into heavier ones. Relatively young stars like our Sun convert hydrogen to produce helium, just like the first stars of our universe. Once they run out of hydrogen, they begin to transform helium into beryllium and carbon. As these heavier nuclei are produced, they too are burnt inside stars to synthesise heavier and heavier elements. Different sized stars play host to different fusion reactions, eventually forming everything from oxygen to iron.

During a supernova, when a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the resulting high energy environment enables the creation of some of the heaviest elements including iron and nickel. The explosion also disperses the different elements across the universe, scattering the stardust which now makes up planets including Earth.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I haven't watched that program, but the question posed in its title "How the Earth was made", reminds me of one of the most romantic (imho) facts about our universe that I'm aware of. Namely, that we are all, each and every one of us, each and every molecule of each and every cell of our bodies, every single carbon atom of our tissues, made of "stardust". Quite literally - we were born in the stars in the heavens.

http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=52

We are one...all brothers and sisters in this great cosmic creation.

[Pooky 3,807]

The moon is made from green cheese.

I always thought it was Wensleydale ...