For centuries, humanity has seen the moon as a ball of mysteries. The greatest mystery, perhaps, is how it came to be.
It's a long-held belief that the moon was created when part of the earth was cut off the side and thrown into orbit after a massive object hit the earth. Nature's recent paper revealed that it was not an easy "birth," as opposed to what was previously believed. According to scientists, the moon came into being through a violent space collision.
The Giant-Impact hypothesis that emerged in the 1970s states that the moon was formed when a Mars-sized object called Theia collided with the young Earth. From this low-energy graze that happened 4.5 billion years ago, a small accretion disc was formed, giving birth to the moon.
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